


Time and Time Again

by Mottlemoth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Time Travel, snarry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:40:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11190081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mottlemoth/pseuds/Mottlemoth
Summary: It's eleven days since the fall of The Dark Lord - and Harry still can't look away.





	1. Bottled

**Author's Note:**

> This story began life as part of to the Walking The Plank 'Deathly Hallows Canon Challenge', which was pretty straight-forward – canon Snarry without changing the events of the last book. Spot the major obstacle.
> 
> Here follows my response. I hope you enjoy reading - comments are truly, deeply appreciated.

 

Harry had something to say.

Hermione had been his friend for far too long to miss the signs. It was the same with Ron. Both of them, despite being mature and occasionally intelligent young men, were prone to brooding. They left things to brew, stewing and bubbling and frothing away in their emotional cauldrons, and it was only so long before something exploded.

She'd spotted the first signs of it eleven days ago now.

The wizarding world was so overwhelmed at the destruction of Lord Voldemort that nobody but Hermione had noticed. It began the morning after that terrible battle. Harry had seemed restless and sad, ate very little, forced smiles to everyone who came to shake his hand. Hermione had assumed it was the death toll in the Daily Prophet that troubled him.

Everyone had lost a piece of themselves. Even their joy at Voldemort's demise wasn't enough to fill that gap. However much they had won, they had lost at the same time.

On the second day, an interviewer came to speak to Harry. The wizarding world was desperate for the story, for the final declaration that their suffering was over. Perhaps it was anxiety over his coming interview that kept Harry awake all night. He had dark shadows under his eyes as he picked at a bowl of cereal, huddled at the Weasleys' kitchen table across from Hermione. When she asked if he'd slept, he didn't answer.

The interview went well, nonetheless. The days wore on. Life, in all its unexpected wonder, was continuing and regenerating.

George announced on the third day, to his parents' surprise, that the business would not be sold. Fred hadn't died for him to sell up shop and become a penny-pinching hermit. He'd died so that people could keep laughing. Percy, who had lived awkwardly under his parents' roof for three days, declared his utmost commitment to the business and his support in all administrative duties. Mr and Mrs Weasley, with tears in their eyes, said Fred would have wanted it. No more of their children would be hurt. Fred had given them life and what good would it be, going unused and unenjoyed?

Yet still Harry was keeping something.

Hermione watched him that evening, sitting in the lounge with the Weasleys, staring silently at a spot on the wall as they laughed around him. He sat amongst them like a ghost. If he was spoken to, he cracked a smile and laughed, and seemed almost normal. But then he would sink back to his staring. Something strangewould flicker in his eyes.

"I don't know," Ginny said awkwardly, when Hermione came to talk to her that night. She twisted the corner of her duvet in her hands. "He's not - ... not really spoken to me at all. I thought he looked off yesterday and I asked if he was okay. He just got up and walked off."

"He didn't say anything at all?" Hermione was shocked. She had thought that even if he confided in no-one else, Harry would confide in Ginny.

"Nothing..." Ginny hesitated. "I don't think he's happy."

"No," said Hermione. "He's not happy at all."

On the seventh day, there was talk in the Daily Prophet of Harry being awarded the Order of Merlin, first class. He laughed and joked with the Weasleys, despite the greying tinge to his face, the haunted look that only Hermione saw. She caught him on his way to the bathroom.

"Harry?"

The grin came out. It was affected so quickly that it almost hurt to see. "Hey Hermione! How come you're lurking? I thought you were downstairs with everybody else..."

"I'm not going to pressure you," she said, and saw his grin falter. She held up her hands. "Nor am I saying that there _is_ a problem. But if there _was_ something wrong... I want you to know that I would listen and help, and not criticise you. That's all I want to say."

It was a tried and tested method. She knew it would work. She didn't need to say anything else, and so hugged him briefly and turned away, heading back down the stairs. She took a last glance back.

Harry stood at the top of the stairs, numb, looking at a spot on the wall.

It was the ninth day. Tonks's mother brought round Teddy so he could see his godfather, and the Weasleys spent their day fussing and cuddling around the young boy. Mrs Weasley had a distinctly broody look in her eye as she sat with Harry, Hermione and Andromeda, smoothing the baby's hair.

"Of course I'm sad," Andromeda said, gazing at her orphaned grandson. "It's impossible not to be. All the same... she died for a reason. I can look back in love She'll forever be remembered."

Hermione glanced at Harry. He wasn't even looking at the baby, barely aware of what anyone was saying. He was looking down into the greying cup of tea he'd been given half an hour ago.

Last night was the tenth night since Voldemort's defeat.

Fleur and Bill had come over for a meal in the evening. A few bottles of fire whiskey and wine had the whole family, Harry and Hermione sitting in the garden late into the night, and as Hermione had looked over through the candles floating around the table, Harry had seemed somewhat eased. He sat talking to Mr Weasley, who was listening to his explanation of microwaves with fervent fascination. It was past midnight by the time Mrs Weasley called bedtime.

And Harry's face fell.

Hermione lay awake for quite some time, waiting until the rest of the house were asleep. When she at last could hear Ron's snores from three rooms away, she slid out of her bed, lit her wand and crept down the hall.

There was no light coming from under Harry's door. She pushed carefully, moving into the room with delicate silence, and held her wand high to look over at his bed.

Although asleep, Harry's face was twisted with pain. His fists had clenched on the pillow beside him, face white, and Hermione realised that there were wet trails glinting on his face in the wand light. As she stood, rigid with shock and sympathy, she heard him speak:

"Look - ... look at me... look at me, l-look at me... I'm here - ..." A shudder wracked him. "I'm here, I'm here. Please. Don't go. Please stay."

Hermione closed the door and went back to her room. In the morning, she came down to find Harry alone in the kitchen, silent and empty as a corpse.

"Harry?"

"Hi Hermione!" There was the grin, lurched into place. Perhaps it was only because she'd been looking, but it became more and more forced everyday. There was red around Harry's eyes. "Want some cereal? I was going to make tea but I thought – "

"Harry..."

She sat beside him. He was silent, numb, staring into her face as if she'd caught him murdering someone.

"Harry, please talk to me. I'm frightened, so is Ginny. It's been a week and a half."

That word, 'Ginny', seemed to trigger something in the blank green eyes. His lip curled. She saw him as he clamped down on the expression, ironed it out.

"I... I don't know about me and Ginny anymore. I mean, lots has changed. It's - ... you won't tell her, will you?"

"Is this all that's been bothering you?"

He hesitated. Suddenly from upstairs there came the creak of a bedroom door and Harry jumped, and before Hermione could say another word, he was scrabbling for the teapot and filling it with water. Mr Weasley came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

"Morning, you two... is that some tea, Harry? Wonderful. Busy day today." He tried a smile. "Molly and I think it's time we arranged Fred's funeral...just for closure. George has been saying he wants something spectacular. I'm not sure how thrilled Molly will be, but well... we were thinking - ... are you alright, Harry?"

The teapot had slipped from Harry's hand and hit the floor, cracking one of the tiles. Water gushed everywhere. Hermione leapt to her feet, drawing her wand.

" _Reparo_ ," she said. The tile clicked back together. With another wave of her wand, the water vanished. Harry picked up the teapot.

For a while there was silence. Then Mr Weasley laughed nervously.

"I do wonder what we'd do without you around, Hermione... why don't you have a sit down Harry? You do look a little tired. Here, I'll finish the tea."

Harry sank into a chair. Hermione sat next to him, silently, as Mr Weasley began to hunt for teabags and milk.

Beneath the table, she felt Harry reach over and touch her hand. She looked up.

His eyes were welling with tears.

"I need help," he mouthed, and she felt him shaking.

She squeezed his hand and nodded, to show she understood. He lifted a hand and passed his sleeve over his eyes, taking away the tears. When Mr Weasley asked how they'd slept, the smile was there ready and the mask came back up.

With the day's events, it became increasingly hard to see when Hermione would be able to talk to Harry. There was always someone else around. Most often it was Ron, who sat with them for most of the day, oblivious to Hermione's suggestions that he go polish his broom or see if his mother needed help with Ron was finally called to set the table for dinner, an opportunity seemed to be available. Barely had Hermione opened her mouth when the door opened, and Bill stuck his head into Ron's room.

"There you two are, thought we'd lost you. Can you come lug some chairs for us?"

They brought chairs back and forth from the garden to the kitchen in silence, side-by-side but unable to speak. Hermione could almost feel the desperation pouring from Harry. It didn't feel like this was an ordinary worry. It was serious, and every passing minute was another minute too long for him to stay bottled.

Dinner was pleasant. Charlie's anecdotes about his first few weeks in Romania seemed to lighten Harry somewhat, though Hermione couldn't concentrate. Her anxiety seemed to outstretch Harry's. Nobody was eating nearly fast enough, and when dinner was finally over, nobody seemed willing to go in their separate directions. Mrs Weasley began to make coffee. Ron was told to fill the dishwasher and went about it, complaining loudly about the magical appliance's choice of music. Everybody stood up, moving through to the lounge.

And out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw someone move quickly out of the kitchen door into the darkness of the garden.

She waited to see if anyone had seen – nobody was watching, all involved in discussion of the new Quidditch season. Taking her coat from the peg, she slipped out of the door after Harry. Ron's questioning "Hermione?" was lost on her ears.

She found him at the very bottom of the Weasleys' garden, where a small pond lay glassy and grey in the moonlight. A rickety bench had been set up looking over the marshy ground. Harry sat there, his knees drawn to his chest.

As she sat down, he said nothing.

His eyes did not move from the surface of the pond, as if there was something beneath the water that she simply couldn't see. Still, he didn't speak. She didn't want to force him, if this was his healing process. Never had she seen him this lost. If she hadn't known better, she'd have questioned whether Harry had survived that final battle at all.

After quite some time, she saw his head tip forwards onto his arms. She turned to look at him, breath held. And at last, Harry spoke.

"I... I didn't mean to drop it. I'm not going mad. I'm not... not unstable. It just slipped. It was just - ... it made me think - ..."

He lifted his head. Tears were glowing in his eyes.

"About Fred's funeral... and I realised. I just suddenly realised."

"Harry..." Her heart was in her throat. "It's awful, I know... and it's even worse to realise it. Except we have to move on. Lots of people died, I know, but... we're safe now. We're free. Isn't that – "

"No, it's not – " He reached up, rubbing at his eyes. "Not just Fred, not even Tonks and Lupin, I'm not... not _sad_ over them. I can move on, there was a reason, they died for something. But - ..."

His face screwed up.

"He's still there. He's just there and I can see him when I close my eyes. When I try to sleep. He's still there."

Hermione searched his face, fear feeling for the back of her neck. "Harry, not... not Voldemort?"

Harry shook his head, shaking now, fists balled at his eyes.

"No, he's gone. I know he's gone. But... it's - ..." He clenched his hands into his hair, taking a few moments, drawing in breath. "Snape. We just left him there. He's not even _buried._ "

"Harry..."

"I know it's stupid," he gasped, and clamped down on another shudder. "I just... Hermione, I think I'm going mad. I can't sleep. I can't stop seeing him. Every time I close my eyes I can see him and it's just over and over, I can't stop seeing him die. You didn't see. You didn't see his eyes."

"It's not stupid, Harry..." Tentatively she moved closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. The muscles there were hard as rock, so tense it must hurt. "You just... have to forget. You have to move on."

" _I can't!_ Hermione, you don't understand. You can't. I just keep seeing him die. And he didn't have to. Tonks and Remus had their son, and Fred had his family, but he - ... he had _nothing_. Nothing but memories."

He looked up through his fingers, staring out across the water, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Everybody just stripped him of everything. Voldemort and Dumbledore. They just used him and he had nothing left, nothing, and he didn't have to die. He died with nothing. And he's just _lying_ there because I didn't even think - ... I didn't even bury him. I buried Dobby. Everyone's moving on and he's just _there_ and - ..."

He dug his fingers into his hair.

"He's _alone_. He's just there on his own..."

The lump in Hermione's throat was almost painful. She gripped his arm tightly, feeling tears sting her own eyes now.

"We... we can go bury him, Harry. Tomorrow. First thing in the morning. We'll go get his body."

Harry shuddered. "But - ... but I - ..." His breath hitched. "I don't want him to be dead. I don't want to bury him. I just - ... I just want him to be _alive_. More than Fred, and Tonks and Remus, and Hedwig and Mad-Eye and Dobby. They're gone and they're at peace and they don't hurt anymore. But he's - ... Hermione, I can't stop thinking. I can't stop seeing him die."

"Harry... please listen to me... we can find someone for you to talk to. They have people trained to help."

"I don't want to talk. I just... just want him to live."

Hermione hesitated. She squeezed his arm gently. "You can't bring him back... nobody can. Magic can't restore the dead."

"He was never happy. He was never even _happy_."

"I know... but Harry, please. You can't keep killing yourself over this. He's at peace now."

"No - ... no, _he isn't_. You don't understand. He's not at peace. He died for nothing. He's not got anybody to look over and be happy they're safe."

"But he's not in pain anymore..."

Harry squeezed his eyes tight shut. Another tear rolled down his cheek. "Then why do I keep seeing him _die_?"he whispered.

There was silence for quite some time. Hermione put her arms around him, quietly, and held him as he shook. His tears wet the wool of her jumper. Distantly she heard Ron at the kitchen door calling for them, his voice dimmed and far away somehow.

"Harry," she whispered. She squeezed him. "We can't change the past. You have to let go."

Harry had gone still in her arms. She began to rub his back, wishing away his hurt. It was the first time she'd stopped being his friend and become his mother.

"It'll fade in time... you'll be happy again. He's happy, Harry, wherever he is. He knows you understand. He knows you respect him. Even if you could bring him back, he probably wouldn't want to. We can't change time."

"But we can."

The three words were spoken so quietly, and with such deliberation, that she paused. She pulled back to look at him. The green eyes were focused, alive with some idea, some plan.

"We can. Why didn't I think? Why didn't I realise?" He sat up; he looked as if he were about to laugh. "Hermione, we can! I can go back... I can change it. I can stop it. Nobody's buried him, nobody's seen him. I can _change_ it."

"But... no, you can't. Nothing can change. I know it hurts but it's done Harry, it's over. You can't save him. What are you talking about?"

Suddenly he reached for her wrist and grasped it, hard. She jumped.

"Harry, you're frightening me!"

"I need your help," he said. Something flickered in his eyes. "No, not much of your help. I just need something from you. I'll do the rest myself. It's easier if it's just me. There's less risk."

He stared imploringly into her shocked face. And for the first time in eleven days, he wasn't seeing the life snuffed out in Severus Snape's eyes.

"What did you do with your Time-Turner?"


	2. Novel

 

"Harry, this... this isn't going to work. I know you're excited and you think it'll bring him back, but please, just think!"

Harry wasn't listening. He was rifling through the hefty textbook open on his knee, eyes scanning quickly over the miniscule list of contents. Despite her reservations, Hermione's Time-Turner glittered on its delicate chain, held tight in his fist. She'd been keeping it in her jewellery box all this time.

"For a start, you can't turn time back eleven days. It flouts so many wizarding laws, I think it would take another eleven days to list them."

"Will the Time-Turner do it?"

"Well yes, _technically_ it will, but – "

"Fine. Then I will."

"Harry, _listen to me_! It's just... it's just impossible! Even turning time back a single hour comes with incomprehensible risk. And eleven _days_... it's just unthinkable. No Harry, I'm sorry, you can't."

At last, he'd found the right section – _Stunning Spells, incl. paralysing, freezing, rigor mortis, petrification, etc._ He began to leaf through quickly, looking for the right page. Hermione kept talking. Ron, sitting numbly on his bed, said nothing.

"And even if you _did_ take time back eleven days, which is so illegal I don't know how you can even comprehend it, it's just impossible Harry. We were there, you and me and Ron, we were there in the tunnel when Snape died! You'd be seen!"

"I can hide."

She spluttered. "And do what? Jump out from behind a pot plant, stun us all and change our memories?"

"If I have to."

" _Harry_. This is ridiculous. There's no way you could save his life. You saw what that snake did to him. Ron, can you please back me up?"

Ron, startled that he had been addressed, mumbled something about not being too sure on the mechanics of the situation, and retreated back into safe silence. Hermione sighed.

"There's just an amazing amount of things you'd have to change. And I'm sorry, but you _can't_. You just can't."

"What like?" Harry looked up. His eyes glittered feverishly, but he felt alive, _alive_ for the first time in eleven days. The thought of seeing those black eyes staring up at him, brimming with life, was enough to keep him going. It was enough to live on. "Okay. There's the bites and all the blood. I can learn healing charms, and there are potions to make him regenerate the blood. Can't I?"

"But – "

"Because the charms are right here." He flipped open the book at the page he'd marked. "See, look. There's even one specifically for neck wounds."

"But the _venom_ , Harry, it's – "

He laughed. "The amount of times Snape himself told us about snake venom! Come on, Hermione. All I need to know is what kind of snake it is and there's probably a book in Snape's rooms, telling me how to cure it."

"But you'd have to catch him and do all this before he died, Harry, and _he died while we were there._ "

Harry glanced down, flicking over a last few pages. There, as if waiting for him to find it, was just the right spell. He began to read aloud.

_"Anatomortis._ Variant of _pertificus totalus_. Will induce the basic level lack of movement, speech, etc, but with added lack of eye movement and temporary halt to most biological functions. Also, complete rigidity is not affected (as with _petrificus totalus)_ rather a 'death-like' stiffness. Warnings – target will sustain life for approximately ten minutes before death, due to lack of biological activity. Counter charm, _anatoprotis._ "

He looked up. Hermione was open-mouthed. For a few moments she simply stared, as if even more shocked at the credibility of it all, before she regained her voice.

"Okay. Okay, fine, say you manage to teach yourself this highly complex spell, go back in time eleven days - _which is illegal_ – and hide yourself somewhere in the Shrieking Shack – _even though_ _Voldemort's_ _running around there_ – and hit Snape with this spell. Then what?"

"Then he goes stiff, his eyes stop moving. You, me and Ron think he's dead. Off we go. I come in, heal his wound, get him to recreate the blood, give him the venom antidote – "

" – and live for _eleven days_ in the Shrieking Shack _?_ "

Harry felt his fingers tighten around the book. A shudder went down his spine. "If we have to."

"Harry, I - ... Harry, this is _madness_! You need _help_ , you need somebody to talk to. I know it's sad but... _please_ , Harry, see sense!"

"See sense?" Harry felt his breathing start to become ragged now. "Because I've had so much sense for the past seventeen years? Why are my crackpot plans okay when we're going to protect the Philosopher's Stone, or when we're sneaking into the Chamber of Secrets to save your life, or going back in time to rescue Sirius? How about when I duelled Voldemort on my own? How about riding Thestrals to the Ministry of Magic, or going off with Dumbledore to find Horcruxes, or all of last year? Hermione, this is perhaps the _least_ risky crackpot plan I've ever had!"

Hermione's hands were over her mouth. He saw tears spring in her eyes and felt only anger at them, resentment. She didn't understand. Nobody did. Nobody but him had seen Snape die, over and over and over, every night for eleven days.

"But Harry, he's... he's _dead_. We know he's dead. And when he's suddenly back to life? You could destroy the fabric of time itself!"

Harry swallowed.

"No," he said. "Because only four people know he's dead. You two, me, and Voldemort. Voldemort's not going to be telling anyone." He paused. "And neither are you two."

"But the rest of the Order know!"

"Do they?" The momentary doubt in her eyes was a victory, and he relished it, clung to it. "Nobody knows. Have you heard anybody say his name? Anybody even wonder what happened to him? No. Everybody's too busy crying about Fred, and Tonks, and Lupin, and they're not the only ones that died. Nobody knows he's dead. Nobody cares he's dead. But I do, and I'm going to change it."

"Harry... Harry, this is lunacy. You _can't_."

"I can," he breathed. "And I will."

He stood up. They both backed away, as if terrified that he would go back in time right now, here in front of them.

"I'm going to teach myself this spell," he said, his voice shaking. "When I've done that, and I'm going to do it by tomorrow, I'm going back to Hogwarts. If I can't get into the library to look for books about snake venom, I'll break into Snape's rooms and look there. I'll check the Hospital Wing for bandages and salve and any other medical supplies. Anything else I need, I'll think of on the way."

He looked up at them, the book of spells still held in his arms. Hermione was crying silently now, the tears leaking down her face. Ron was very pale.

"Please understand," he said quietly. "I... I _have_ to do this. I have to try. I can't exist like this."

"Mate **-** "Ron swallowed. "At least let us come with you. I mean... I know we don't really get it, but at least we can help."

"It has to be me," said Harry. He tightened his fingers on the spine of the book. "I'm the only one who can." He looked out of the darkening window. Downstairs, he could hear the rest of the Weasleys all laughing over some board-game. He didn't feel a part of them anymore. He had to fix things. Only then would he be real again. Only then would he live.

"I might go to Hogwarts tonight," he said. He ignored Hermione's gasp, spoke over her as she began to plead. "I just want to get going as soon as possible. If I'm going to do this, I don't want to leave it too late."

He could use Floo powder to get to Hogsmeade – there would be a fireplace in the Hog's Head, and he knew Aberforth Dumbledore wouldn't mind him passing through. From there he could walk to Hogwarts. It would be deserted for the summer by now. There were repairs going on later in August – he'd seen the article in the Daily Prophet, and spoken to McGonagall herself. It stood empty now.

"Wecan stay in the Shrieking Shack until the coast is clear," he said, almost to himself. "So long as we don't go anywhere that I've been in the last eleven days, it doesn't matter. Nobody will know."

He turned to his two friends, who had been with him through every adventure, every struggle.

"You... won't tell anyone, will you?"

There was a pause. Then, through her tears, Hermione shook her head. She lowered her hands at last. "No," she promised. "No-one."

Ron, mute, shook his head.

A little of the weight in Harry's chest seemed to ease. "Thanks," he managed. He looked down at the book in his arms. "I'll... I'll send you an owl, just before I go. Then I'll send you one when we're safe."

Ron's forehead tightened. "But... wouldn't we have already got it by now? Or would we even know that we'd got it?"

"I don't know. I'll send you an owl after however many days it is, then. Twelve, if I can help it." He looked at Hermione, who didn't seem quite as confused as Ron. "You'll get it pretty soon after the first owl."

"Okay," she said. Her voice was rather small.

There was a pause, in which he simply looked at them both. Ron shifted uncomfortably. "What should I tell my mum and dad?" he asked. "I mean... they're going to be asking where you are for twelve days."

Hermione frowned. "Harry will only be gone for a couple of days, to us. All the same..." She bit her lip. "You've gone to Grimmauld Place? To get our things?"

"Yeah, but we'd have gone with him," said Ron.

"To do some soul-searching then," said Hermione dismissively. "They'll understand. We'll think of something. Just... oh Harry. Please be careful. And please, _please_ don't get yourself seen or killed because then there'll be all kinds of trouble. I don't even want to think about it."

"I'll be fine, Hermione," he mumbled. He squeezed the Time-Turner in his fist. "How many times do I turn it for eleven days? It's a lot of hours..."

"You can set it to days... you just tap it with your wand, and say _dia_ , or _woche_ for weeks... then you just turn it however many you want."

There was silence for a while.

"I'll... get packing, then," he said and turned towards the door. At first he thought they'd leave him to pack on his own, and didn't think he could bear the thought. Then Hermione's hand touched his elbow. He looked back at her.

"Please let us help?" she said.

He smiled. "Yeah... okay." He looked at Ron. "Coming?"

"Sure." Ron stood up. Together they left the room, moving down the narrow corridor towards Harry's bedroom. "Just... Harry. How come Snape's this important to you? I don't want to sound... pathetic or anything, but... I mean. Fred."

"It's not that I don't miss Fred. If I could I'd bring him too, and Remus and Tonks, but... I don't know. I don't get what it is, Ron. I just have to."

"It sounds like a lot of trouble over one greasy idiot, to me. However brave he was."

"I know. But it makes sense in my head, and nothing else does. It's good enough for me."

* * *

Hogwarts sat still, and quiet, and lonely in the light of the moon. All the same Harry ran up the steps to the front doors, pulling his wand from his sleeve just in case they were locked. They weren't. He slipped through the gap into the dark of the Entrance Hall, unable to see anything due to the dark.

" _Lumos_ ," he gasped. His wand tip glowed. Holding it high over his head, he looked around at the hall that had once given him more hope, and more comfort, than any other place in the world.

He remembered all the years he'd arrived in this hall after terrible summers. The same feeling of escape filled his chest as he breathed in that familiar scent – even the battle hadn't destroyed the magic of Hogwarts. Great chunks had been blasted out of the architecture by errant spells. A blood stain was spattered across the doors to the Great Hall. Harry wondered briefly whose it was.

Holding his wand higher, he squinted through the darkness. At last, he spotted one of the lamps in their brackets against the wall. He pointed his wand and muttered the charm, satisfied as all around him, light burst over the hall. It flickered and dappled and he thought he felt the castle sigh, warmed again, full of life.

"You'd better help me out," he said to the firelit walls. "Because I'm doing this on my own, and I bet you want him back as much as I do."

The torches in their brackets rippled softly, crackling as he passed, dragging his bag up the main staircase. He knew where he would base himself, for however long his plan took.

Harry had only seen the Headmaster's Office on a few occasions. Admittedly, he saw it far more often than most students of Hogwarts did – but not once had he wondered where the headmaster actually _lived_. Thinking about it, he felt almost ashamed at assuming that Dumbledore lived in his office. Never had he seen a bed in there.

There were bookshelves, he knew, and there was every chance that Snape had moved some of his own books there. It was worth checking.

More likely though, there were private rooms of some kind in which the headmaster resided. Snape, as the school's most recent headmaster, was the last occupant of those rooms. They were Harry's first port of call – if only he knew where they were.

The gargoyle outside the Headmaster's Office yawned, lifting its head with faint interest as Harry came into sight.

"H'lo Potter..." it murmured, sleepily.

Surprised, Harry blinked. "You know my name?"

"Spend enough bloody time here, don't you?" The gargoyle stretched lazily, heaving another great yawn that cracked dust from its stone wings. "You know it's not September yet, don't you?"

"I know. Maybe you could help me out though."

"Mm? Well, I suppose it'll give me something to do... what's troubling you?"

"The headmasters of Hogwarts... they don't live in their office, do they?"

The gargoyle laughed, rolling onto its back idly. Harry wondered if he was meant to rub. "No," the gargoyle said. "What did you think? They curl up under the desk with a sleeping bag?" Another great yawn. "There's private rooms. Empty now though. Sad, really. Not sure who's moving in just yet."

"I think Professor McGonagall's taken the position..."

Lifting a paw, the gargoyle began to scratch at its stomach. "Minerva? Oh, excellent. She's always a good laugh."

"Um." Harry assumed there was another Minerva McGonagall somewhere around Hogwarts. "Yeah. Listen, seeing as though there's no headmaster at the moment... can I go in?"

The gargoyle adopted a rather pained expression. "Well... technically, _technically_ , there's still a lot of private possessions in there. So by the book, I need to ask for the password - "

"Oh great." Harry sat down. This would take some time. "Right... Lily. Potions. Pickled stuff in jars. Slytherin. Bats. Shampoo. Am I getting warmer?"

The gargoyle waved a paw. "Meh, warm enough. Let them sue me." Behind it, the steps of the revolving staircase clunked, jittered briefly, and then began to wind the other way – downwards, out of sight. "In you go, Potter. Wipe your shoes."

Heart beating with triumph, Harry approached the staircase and stepped on, carefully. "Thanks."

The gargoyle yawned, watching as he spiralled down out of sight. "Anytime."

Harry's wand light passed over the thick, silvery stone walls of the stairwell as he descended, deeper and deeper. It was somewhat eerie. Squeezing the bag now held to his chest, he began to hum to try to dispel his anxiety – though as the wall opened a moment later, and his eyes fell on the headmaster's private rooms, all his fear evaporated on the spot.

He knew at once that these rooms had been tailored to fit their last occupant. There was something inescapably _Snape_ about it all, but it was a Snape that Harry had rarely seen. The spacious lounge into which he stepped was furnished in claw-footed mahogany, decorated with dark green wallpaper that was velvety to the touch. Despite its gloom, there was warmth in this place. It looked lived in. It looked as if its master had adored it. Spotting a wall sconce nearby, Harry tapped it with his wand.

The room was flooded with light, a rich amber glow that only enhanced its grandeur. Harry's eyes were drawn instantly to a set of towering bookshelves in the far corner, crammed with papers and books. He moved over, jittering with hope, and knelt on the ornate rug before them. To his surprise, there were not only textbooks here. He even recognised some Muggle literature, Brontë and Poe and an anthology of Wilde, and trailed his fingertips hungrily over the titles offered. More than one looked as if it had the answers he needed.

There would be time to look in a moment. For now, he was too eager to explore.

Two doors led off the lounge – one, an open archway into a similarly rich bedroom, decorated in dark grey-blues and oak, a sprawling four-poster bed dominating the space. The other was a bathroom, complete with a bath easily the same size as the one in the prefects' bathroom.

It all seemed so lived in. These couldn't be the abandoned rooms of a dead man. They were not abandoned, not empty – they were just waiting. He felt it in the air, in the plush velvet of the sofa as he ran his fingers over it, in the stern gloss of the great mahogany cabinets.

In the bedroom, there were night-clothes laid out on the bed. A novel sat on the night-stand, bookmarked, ready and waiting to be resumed. Harry picked it up. It was Arthur Conan Doyle. He touched the faded leather cover gently, eased it open, traced his fingertips over the pages Snape's eyes had wandered. Snape was halfway through one of the stories. Harry's heart was beating hard, and he sat on the edge of the bed, wondering on which paragraph Snape had stopped reading, which sentence, which word.

A sudden chime made him jump and he whirled round, nerves alight. It was only a clock on the bedroom wall. According to the position of its delicate brass hands, it was nearing midnight. Soon, it would be twelve days since Severus Snape had died.

"I'll get you back," Harry breathed to the stillness. The Time-Turner was tucked carefully into Hagrid's leather pouch, still hanging around his neck. "I can and I will."

He could sleep in Snape's bed. Snape wouldn't mind, and there was no reason to bed down on the couch when the four-poster was so neatly made. Somewhat awkward at being naked in Snape's private rooms, he changed quickly into his pajamas and folded his clothes away into his bag for the morning. As he checked the Time-Turner was still safe in the leather pouch, he spotted a smaller, tidier bookcase in the corner of the room. It drew him nearer.

More Muggle literature, more poetry, what looked like aged children's books nestled together on the bottom shelf. The books here were not crammed but coaxed, gently, each with its own place to be.

These, Harry knew, were Snape's most private books. He was surprised to find that hardly any were on dark magic. In fact, surprisingly few of them dealt with magic of any kind. There were some Muggle history books, particularly on Tudor monarchs, and then some on wizarding history. Snape had a love of Ancient Greek magic, he found.

There was only one Potions textbook. It sat beside a very early edition of Bathilda Bagshot's _A History of Magic_ , and looked as if it had been very well-used indeed. The spine, faded from years of ownership, read _Higher-Level Potion Preparation and Practice._ Intrigued, Harry cajoled it out from its fellows.

The cover was almost hanging off; he could see evidence of multiple repairs, and many stains spattered the front, burn marks, scuffing. This was a wizened patriarch among books, scarred and wise. He could tell that this was more than a textbook. It was a companion.

He let it fall open in his lap. His heart leapt.

Snape's cramped, tiny scrawl covered the pages, littered the various recipes and articles, additions and adaptations and snarky comments in disagreement with the author. Wild with recognition, Harry raced through the pages, knowing it would be there – and there it was.

_This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince._

This was the book, he knew. He would search tomorrow. It was late. Holding the book carefully against his chest, he gathered it back to bed and set it beside the Conan Doyle. He pulled back the covers.

There was a hot water bottle waiting for him – cold, tartan, scruffy, but faithfully waiting nonetheless.

He put it carefully to the floor. Making temporary use of Snape's bed was one thing. Indulging in his hot water bottle was another. He tugged the covers up around his neck, took off his glasses, and closed his eyes at last. Within minutes, he was asleep.


	3. Venom

 

Breakfast was an odd affair. It was fortunate that Hermione had spotted the question of what Harry was going to eat over the course of his venture.

"I thought cornflakes... I know they're not particularly thrilling, but the box should last you quite some time. They won't rot either. I just hope it'll be enough... I can't even think what you're going to do in the Shrieking Shack. There'll be two of you as well. I guess you'll just have to put on your cloak and go to Hogsmeade... Harry, are you _sure_ about all this?"

He was. It was why he found himself sitting in Professor Snape's bed early on the twelfth morning, eating cornflakes out of the box with a spoon, _Higher-Level Potion Preparation and Practice_ open before him. The book was evidently reading material for a wizarding degree of some kind. Without Snape's comments scrawled in the margins, Harry doubted he would have understood a word of it.

The abbreviation ' _expl.'_ featured frequently, and was usually joined by an arrow to a cluster of Snape's own comments. Harry soon realised that it meant 'explanation'. As he thumbed through the book, picking cornflakes out of the box beside him, he followed the winding trail of witticisms with a mixture of affection and amusement.

_Expl. Clockwise stirring activates counter-reaction of ingredients. Prevents formation of wrong potion and subsequent failing of degree, dooming of unemployment for rest of life, etc._

Here and there, separate leafs of paper had been slotted into the book. They seemed to have been written during lectures. Snape's short-hand was nothing short of cryptic, and so Harry gave up trying to read them after the first few. At the top of each was written, _S Snape. Joint Honours Potions/Study of the Dark Arts._

He took another handful of cornflakes, crunching through them quietly as he flicked to the back of the book, looking for some kind of index. The actual index featured specialist terms that he couldn't even pronounce, let alone understand. Snape had created his own on the back cover.

There, halfway down, was the one word Harry longed to see. _Snakes, page 344._ A little drawing of a snake accompanied it.

He turned back through the book, hunting for page 344. At last he found it. His heart leapt, seeing ingredients and recipes, diagrams of fangs, pictures of puncture marks that had blistered and turned an array of colours. It was only after a second that Harry realised something important.

Snape's comments were missing. Feeling his heart fall, he flicked through the section with rising anxiety.

Only one note had been left there, right at the end, just before the topic of conversation turned to spiders. Harry read, heart pounding.

_See other snake book. This one crap._

"Oh great. How helpful, thanks professor." Harry slammed the book shut, annoyed, almost upsetting his box of cornflakes. He wriggled out of bed and moved to the shelf in the corner. "Come on. 'Other snake book'. Like there's one other snake book in the whole of existence."

He removed any book whatsoever that looked as if it might help, ending with only three of them stacked by his side. The first was an encyclopaedia of magical animals, but so thick that it would take days even to glance through. The second, Harry was annoyed to find, was actually a novel entitled _The Serpent Song_. Though a brief flick through the pages revealed a rather intriguing sex scene, there wasn't an antidote in sight.

The third book was called, simply, _Venom_. Nothing else was written on the cover. He hesitated, wondering if opening this book was particularly intelligent. In the end, the thought of success made his mind up for him. Gingerly he eased the book open.

A full-page, moving photograph of a rattle-snake greeted him, with a description in a box at the bottom. Surprised, Harry turned through the pages. The book seemed to be nothing but photographs of different snakes, described only with their name and a few sentences. He sat for a while, turning pages, watching the snakes writhe and spit at him, disheartened. His task was beginning to look more mammoth by the minute.

None of the photographs looked quite like Voldemort's snake. A few came close. Inevitably, the diamond pattern on their backs was too large, or the arrow-point of their heads too narrow, their bodies too thin. He began to check their names, looking for some connection, some link.

Beside each name was a tiny symbol, the text 'non-W' encircled in green. It took Harry a few moments before he realised – 'non-wizarding'.

He checked the table of contents. _Wizarding/Magical Snakes, page 78. Rare, page 139. Deadly, page 152._ He began to turn.

And there it was.

There was no mistaking the slant of its head, the mottled patterning on its back, the fact that it sprawled some twenty feet.

 _Dendroaspis hanidae, commonly known as the Black Viper. So named for the black insides of its mouth, rather than its patterning, grey-olive green with darker diamonds. The species is among the largest wizarding snakes, growing up to twenty-five feet in length, and can lift up to a third of its body off the ground. In effect, a fully-grown Black Viper could look down upon the average human being. The species, native to Africa,_ _is commonly recognised as one of the most aggressive in the world._

Harry reached for the encyclopaedia. The Black Viper was not listed, nor were there any suggestions of common antidotes to snake venom. He scrabbled to his feet and moved through to the lounge, kneeling before the bookshelf.

It took two hours to find any detailed information. Countless descriptions of mating habits, diet and habitat flashed by Harry's eyes, always with some half-paragraph about how dangerous it was, never enough to compensate for the crushing disappointment he felt at each one.

Then, at last, just when he was about to give up and call Hermione, he found it.

 _A Traveller's Guide to Wizarding Africa._ It had been such a long-shot, a half-hope, and yet revealed more than he ever could have needed.

_The Black Viper, which can grow past twenty feet in length, is a mercifully rare but most deadly snake found only within deepest jungle. All those planning a trip to the continent should be aware of its presence and take steps to avoid it, as medical help may not always be available in the case of attack._

_In contrast to most other deadly snakes, Black Vipers are particularly aggressive and have been known to attack actively without provocation. They usually deliver multiple strikes to a victim, injecting hemotoxins with each bite. Often, Black Vipers will target the face and neck, unlike other snakes._

_Black Viper venom contains many rapid-acting toxins, including calciseptine. Its bite injects around 120mg of venom on average._

_The bite of the Black Viper is announced_ _by intense local pain in the bite area, which will steadily increase as the toxin spreads. A tingling sensation in the extremities,_ _tunnel vision,_ _sweating, excessive loss of blood and shortness of breath follow. Without treatment, the mortality rate of the Black Viper is 100%. Victims often bleed to death long before the venom reaches its final stages, which bring convulsions, respiratory failure and_ _coma_ _._

_If attacked by a Black Viper, medical help should be sought IMMEDIATELY. Death typically occurs within minutes, usually through blood loss due to the aggressive nature of the snake's attack._

_Various antidotes are available to counter the Black Viper's venom. The research_ _of Orphia_ _Green_ _in the earlier part of the twentieth century led to many cures for the venom of various snakes._

_Travellers should ask their mediwizard for a basic supply of snake-bite antidotes. In particular, it should be ensured that Green's Solution is included in ample supply, as this will neutralise the venom of the Black viper, among other serpents. Apply Green's Solution directly to the bite marks until the venom has disappeared._

_It should be noted that the aggressive nature of the Black Viper is far more lethal than its venom. All wizards should be well-versed in powerful defensive spells, and check with local sources in order to avoid areas of Black Viper habitation._

Green's Solution. Green's Solution. The phrase pounded against the inside of Harry's skull as he headed back into Snape's bedroom, snatching _Higher-Level Potion Preparation and Practice_ from where he had left it by the bookshelf. He tore through the index. _Green, Orphia; page 612._

Page 612 revealed an elaborate title, _The Developmental Research of Orphia Green_ , and a brief account of her life. The Prince had ignored it; so did Harry. He flipped through a few pages until, with a great leap of his heart, a recipe caught his eye.

_Green's Solution._

Snape's notes were scrawled around the various ingredients and the process. There was even a diagram. Harry almost laughed.

It didn't look complicated. A few of the ingredients were completely new to Harry, but he knew Slughorn would have them. His major difficulty would be staunching the blood supply to Snape's neck, saving him from pouring himself away through the floorboards of the Shrieking Shack, but at least the venom was covered. It was another step towards life.

Cradling the book in his arms, Harry left Snape's private rooms for the dungeons, ignoring the gargoyle's inquiries as he ran past.

* * *

 If he managed to pull this off, Harry decided an hour into potion-making, he had a lot to say to Severus Snape. For all Snape's cantankerous nature, he was an extraordinary student of Potions. The printed instructions in the book were almost completely foreign to Harry. One word in eight made sense, usually 'and' or 'the'. Snape's notes were beyond invaluable. As much as he resented it, deep down, Harry had to admit that Snape was a rather magnificent teacher.

_Ignore this stage. Add 5g seasalt instead (reacts with powdered unicorn horn). Stir until froth is subdued._

The contents of Slughorn's potion store had migrated. They laid in piles and stacks and bundles over every desk in the room, ready to be dipped into whenever they came up in the recipe. Not only was Harry attempting Green's Solution, but a blood-clotting salve was glooping away in the corner. It had to stew for three hours, apparently. When that was done, it was time to find something to regenerate a lot of blood in a little time.

Picking up the container of seasalt, Harry tipped a little carefully onto his scales. When the needle finally read five grams, he dusted it into the great stone basin he'd dragged through from the store cupboard. The potion hissed and began to bubble wildly, froth rising to the surface.

He checked the next printed instruction. It made zero sense. Beside it, Snape had written: _Translation. Turn down the heat of the cauldron and get the frog out of the vinegar before it dissolves._

Harry waited until the froth was gone, then eased down the heat. In a little ceramic dish on Slughorn's desk, Harry's dried frog was slowly looking more and more pickled. He eased it out with a pair of tongs, screwing up his nose.

"You so owe me a lot of money for this," he muttered to the memory of Snape in his head. He carried the frog back to his cauldron and glanced at the book.

_Frog should be slightly mushy. Mash in pestle and mortar._

"Oh, you're kidding. You now owe me more than money." Harry put the unfortunate frog into the mortar, took up the pestle and attempted not to look as he began to squash. He tried singing the Chudley Cannons theme tune to take his mind off the smell.

_Sprinkle 1g seasalt into frog mixture and leave for roughly ten minutes. Frog will begin to give off air – normal. Potion should be turning pale._

He checked; it was. He salted his frog-coloured gunge and put it to one side, then pulled up a stool to wait.

Just as he began thumbing through the book, wondering if anything needed to be done to his blood-clotting salve, there came a strange creak from somewhere overhead.

Harry froze.

Hesitantly he lifted his eyes to the ceiling. He waited, breath held - it had been so distinct. He reached for his wand. A few moments went by. Then, there came a thump and an unmistakeable clatter of dropped objects. Harry's knuckles went white on his wand.

"Peeves?" he shouted – he heard his voice echoing back at him, trapped within the dungeons. There was no reply. "Peeves, was that you?"

The only sound came from the desk next to him, as the frog began to hiss softly as if expelling air. Harry waited for some other noise, but none came. The minutes wore on. Sure it had been the poltergeist, or a collapsing suit of armour, he pulled the book closer and kept reading.

Darkness had fallen by the time Harry cleared the last ingredient back into the storeroom.

It was all out of order, and Slughorn would know someone had broken into his supplies – the padlock, blasted into pieces across the floor with a Reducto curse was a strong clue in that direction. Harry would have to apologise some other time.

He'd borrowed one of the padded bags used for transporting potions. In it, carefully sealed and wrapped in layers of protective foam, were the fruits of Harry's labour. His blood-clotting salve, which had finally thickened to become a balm, was stored in a shallow glass pot with a screw lid. There were two tall bottles of Green's Solution,far more than the recipe said would be needed. Snape could be bitten by a hundred Black Vipers and live to tell the tale. Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, Harry had also brewed five other antidotes to snake bites. They were clustered neatly together in one corner of the pack. A trip to the Hospital Wing, another broken padlock and a search through Madam Pomfrey's supplies had unearthed Old Mrs Mogwee's Patented Blood Regeneration Potion ( _"Your bloodstream renewed or your money back!"_ ). Harry had borrowed three jugs of the stuff. The instructions said that a tablespoon (four of which he had also borrowed) would enable any witch or wizard to completely regenerate seven pints of blood in less than half an hour, but Harry was taking no chances. He took a thick roll of bandage just in case, and a book of common healing spells, and finally headed back to the headmaster's office for the night.

The gargoyle's eyebrows raised as he approached.

"Been doing some looting, have we, Potter?"

"It's for a good cause," said Harry. He hitched the sagging potions pack higher onto his shoulder. "Listen, did you... hear anything weird today? Like a thump, and a crash?"

"What time?"

"I don't know. About lunch time, maybe."

"I did hear a lot of noise from down in the dungeons. Assumed it was you." The gargoyle shrugged. "Why?"

"No reason. Can I come in?"

"Why not." The staircase clunked into action. "Want to play cards or something?"

"No thanks, I have to learn these spells... maybe later."

"Suit yourself."

Harry stepped onto the revolving staircase, and a minute later had emerged into Snape's rooms. Shoulders aching from the weight, he lowered his potions and bandages onto the coffee table and then sank onto the sofa, panting. It had been a long day. He could smell vinegar all over his clothes. Rubbing his cheek with the back of his hand, it came away covered in soot.

From using Snape's bed, he progressed to Snape's bath.

" _Episkey_!"

It was lucky that he'd accidentally cut himself several times while slicing up honeywart roots. It meant he had something to practice on, without having to resort to self-harm. As he watched, the tiny nick on the back of his hand sealed over, the skin creeping and threading gently back together. Triumph momentarily lifted his heart. He turned his hand over to a deeper cut on the palm.

" _Episkey_!" The wound glowed white for a moment, then began to sew up, as if being zipped. A brief smile touched his lips.

Putting his wand to one side, he sank deeper into the warmth of the bath and sighed, closing his eyes. It had been a long twelfth day. Tomorrow, he would gather the last of his supplies and practice _anatomortis_ , then run over some of the charms for neck wounds. However good he was getting at healing little cuts on his hands, a great gaping wound to the throat wouldn't be the same, even if he had his salve.

There was a lot that could go wrong.

"I will do it," he whispered. He lifted one foot out of the water, opening his eyes, watching the water run down his shin. "I will do it. I will do it."

He left the bath soon after, towelled himself dry and put on his pajamas. It still felt strange being naked here. The thought that Snape had also been naked here only made him feel stranger, and so he tried not to think about it. He found himself sitting cross-legged in the man's bed, running over his book of healing charms one more time.

At last, there came a point when the words no longer sank in. There was such a thing as being over-prepared. He closed the book, rubbing his eyes.

Something seemed different, somehow, he thought as he looked around the room. It looked strangely empty. Something was missing. For a moment he thought of the thump, and the clattering, and wondered – but there were many long corridors and several floors between the headmaster's rooms and the dungeons.

He was being paranoid. Nothing was missing. Taking off his glasses, he put them on the nightstand and burrowed beneath the covers.

* * *

 Harry wasn't asleep. How could he be? This was Snape's bed. This was Snape's room. Here he was, warm, comfortable, cradled by darkness that meant him no harm. And here were hands – gentle, elegant hands that moved around him beneath the blankets. He stirred as he was tugged near. The dark head of a lover dipped to his neck, mouth browsing his jaw. He quivered faintly. The hands began to undo his pajamas, unwrap him. He wasn't asleep.

"Harry..." He'd never heard Snape call him that before. He liked it. He moaned his faint approval as the hands moved beneath his pajamas, ghosted across his skin, cool against hot flesh. "Harry, look at me."

 _I am_ , he whimpered. _I am, I am. I can see you._

Or could he? There was the face, above him in the darkness, the face he'd known far better than he ever thought.

Yet he knew there were dark eyes, and knew the hooked nose, the dip of cheekboneand jaw. He didn't know if he could actually see, though. It was too dark. He couldn't tell. He reached up, touching Severus's face, but there was nothing. He couldn't feel the structure of his face.

 _There's something wrong with my hands_ , he said.

Severus took them, turned them over, looked.

"But the cuts, see, Harry... the cuts. How could you forget?"

How could he forget? He looked at his cuts now, thousands of myriad little marks, and he couldn't be in bed with Severus now. He had to learn his healing charms. But Severus was touching his belly now, pulling down his pajamas, his underwear. Blood was running down his wrists.

"Harry? Harry, look at me. You're not looking, Harry. Why won't you look?"

He reached up. He tried to cup Severus's face, find his jaw, but he couldn't. There was just smoke. It spilt through his fingers – or was it the blood? – and then they were starting to roll. They were turning over and over, and over, and as Harry lifted his head he realised they were in Hermione's Time-Turner. There was golden sand flying around them. He dug his fingers into Severus's shoulders but they were slippery with blood, and suddenly it was not Severus at all. It was Draco Malfoy staring up at him from the lashing fury of Fiendfyre, and it was Draco's hand he was trying to grab, feeling the fingers slip through his own. He could hear Severus screaming somewhere, and he tried to scream back, _hold on, I'm coming_ **,** but Draco was falling down into the fire. Severus was howling. The Time-Turner was still spinning.

Beneath him, Harry's broom started to buck frantically and he was eleven all over again, and it was a Quidditch match. But where was the Snitch? Had he caught it? He looked towards the stands, trying to see if people were cheering.

In every seat sat Severus, stiff as a corpse, eyes empty and black. Staring. Every seat, Severus, staring, staring and staring and he looked down. He was naked. He cried out and reached down, trying to cover himself, but there was nothing between his legs. He was smooth like a doll. As he took his hands away, staring in horror, there was blood daubed between his thighs, still weeping from his wrists.

Something hit him from behind, suddenly, with a thump and a clatter. He fell through the groundof the Quidditch pitch. The grass swallowed him whole and he dropped down, landing on something hard.

When he opened his eyes, he saw it again – Severus's face, white, empty of blood. And he saw the life go out in those eyes like a candle flame, snuffed.

And he bolted awake.

Tears were pouring down his face. He checked his wrists, terrified, looking for blood. There was none. He curled into the pillows, sobbing, as the sweat grew colder on his body.

It was only when he returned to bed after splashing cold water in his face that he realised what was missing.

Snape's pajamas, last night folded on the other pillow, were gone.

* * *

 "Gargoyle. Gargoyle, wake up. Wake up!" Harry, in desperation, flashed his wand at the sleeping guardian. There was a burst of sparks. With a grunt, the gargoyle jumped awake.

"What? What? Oh... it's you." The gargoyle yawned. "What's wrong? It's the middle of the night."

"Did you let anybody in my rooms today?"

Harry barely even noticed that the rooms had become his. He was too fretful to care. The gargoyle rolled sleepily onto its side, heaving another great yawn.

"Apart from you?"

"Well _obviously_ apart from me, otherwise I'd know, wouldn't I? Just tell me, who's been in here today? Did anyone come past?"

"No, nobody..."

"Are you sure? Not even anybody invisible?"

"Jesus, Potter. You don't want to stay in those rooms much longer. You're turning into the last bastard to live in them." The gargoyle frowned at him, ruffling its heavy stone wings. "No. I haven't let nobody in, except you. So I'd appreciate you getting off my back. Why, fingerprints in the dust marks?"

"Some things have gone missing."

"What things?"

Harry struggled for a moment. He decided that he didn't dare, and gave it up. "It doesn't matter, just... you're _sure_. Not even ghosts?"

"Well, ghosts might have got in. I'm not guarding the other walls, am I? Nobody's come in the front. And don't flatter yourself, but I don't think many ghosts would have much to do with your tat, Potter."

The gargoyle snorted, and stretched out on the ground once more.

"Now if you don't mind, I need me beauty sleep. And you need warm milk or something. Chill out. Things turn out okay in the end."

Harry's fists clenched. "Listen, you don't seem to _understand_ – "

"Ahum! Sleeping. Beat it before I change the password."

Angry, Harry stormed back into the rooms. Warm milk did not help.

He sat awake all night, waiting for the dawn, which brought little relief. It was the thirteenth day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are interested, the Black Viper is a combination of traits belonging to the Black Mamba and the King Cobra (which really can look down on the average human being). Many thanks for the information to A Traveller's Guide To Wizarding Africa – also known as Wikipedia.


	4. In Quiet Contemplation

Evening fell on the thirteenth day. Grog sat at his usual post, picking at his teeth in an effort to avert his boredom. Potter had not emerged since his hissy fit last night. Some very strange noises and smells had been coming from the rooms all day, though. Cries of spells and loud bangs. Hissing noises like smoke. A smell suspiciously like chicken. At one point, there was an unmistakable shatter of something expensive and the sound of Potter swearing, but he'd not come out. Grog was rather curious, all in all, even if annoyed that Potter had not shared his chicken.

It was why the clunk of the rising staircase caught his attention so much. He turned round, watching as Potter rose into sight.

"Where've you been all day?" he demanded. Potter looked as if he was going somewhere – he had a strange grey cloak slung over his shoulder, and a large satchel that clinked and rustled. Disappointment dropped Grog's face. "Are you off?"

"I have to go now. I can't leave it any longer..."

"Can't leave what any longer?"

Potter didn't answer. Grog shifted uncomfortably as Potter began to look through his pockets, searching for something.

"I didn't think you were going so soon. Can't you stay another day? It's been good having company." Grog shifted. "You still haven't played cards with me."

"I know... I'm sorry. It's important though."

Nothing was as important as cards. All the same, Potter had made his mind up. Grog slumped to the ground, watching miserably as Potter unzipped his satchel, checking inside.

"Will you come back and visit? You'd be a good headmaster."

Potter smiled. "Yeah, I'll come back and see you. With any luck I'll be bringing someone else too. He'll play cards with you."

"Really? Who?"

"I can't say. I'll jinx it."

"Oh."

Potter seemed to have taken a necklace of some kind out of his pocket. He draped it around his neck. "Wish me luck?"

"Sure, good luck in... whatever suspicious stuff you're doing. Send me a postcard."

"I don't think they sell postcards," Potter said. He smiled – he seemed ill at ease, but was doing a good job at covering it up. "This is it then... see you later, I guess."

Grog said nothing. He watched Potter move away down the corridor. Sadly he laid his chin down on the ground, miserable, wondering how long it would be before somebody else came along. He was just considering a nap when he heard Potter shout from down the corridor, and opened one eye.

"Hey, gargoyle!"

"What?"

"What was the password, by the way? Can you tell me now?"

Grog smiled. "It was you, mate."

* * *

The Shrieking Shack sat high and grey and broken on the hill above Hogsmeade. It loomed over the landscape like the prophecy had over Harry's life. From the moment he could discern it on the horizon **,** he could barely take his eyes away. His heart battered against his ribs, wanting to get out, wanting to go back.

He'd come this far; he couldn't retreat.

Against his better judgement he kept walking, forcing himself onwards, until he'd reached the bottom of the hill and stood looking up at the dilapidated house. The Time-Turner glimmered beneath his fingers.

_Look... at... me..._

So many things could go wrong. If he got out of this alive, and the whole chronology of the universe remained unscathed, it would be a miracle.

He'd been enjoying a good run of miracles lately. Maybe it would last him another few hours.

There was a patch of trees nearby – it was here that Harry hid with the Time-Turner, not wanting to be seen. However many magical laws he was flouting, it was worth respecting the basics. He had a last check of his potions, his cloak, his wand, all the rest of his supplies, and then the time: just after eight o' clock.

There was ample time. Snape had been killed about an hour before dawn. Voldemort's attack had begun at midnight. It was a long time to wait, but he couldn't take any more risks than necessary.

He closed his eyes, squeezing the delicate hourglass within his fist. It was already set to days.

Slowly he began to turn. When he reached seven turns, he began to panic and thought of stopping all this, learning to live, finding help, someone to talk to. It was too late now. Ten and eleven had the lump in his throat pounding. He found himself shaking, twelve, but it was done now, no going back, thirteen.

The trees, the hill and the Shrieking Shack above dissolved. It was four years since Harry had felt this sensation – so unlike a portkey or Apparition or Floo powder, a feeling like being dragged backwards by the ankles through high wind, flying, struggling. Colour and shape became a pointless blur, flashing past his eyes, noise clamping in on his ears –

And then at last, the ground rose up to strike the soles of his feet. He crumpled, the breath expelled from his lungs in a rush. He toppled over with an audible "oof".

Quickly he scrabbled for the invisibility cloak, which had become dislodged during the journey. He tugged it over himself. Still panting from the rapid passage of time, he took a few moments to try and ground his thoughts. His ears were pounding uncomfortably. It was eight o' clock at night, thirteen days previously. In four hours, Hogwarts and Hogsmeade would become the battleground for murder on a colossal scale.

For now, the village was peaceful. Even Death Eater occupation hadn't spoilt Hogsmeade's quiet charm. Resting his head back against a tree, Harry took some time just to listen, to appreciate the calm before the coming storm.

Where was Snape now? What was he doing? What was he thinking? Did he know? Was he afraid?

He could send an owl to Snape, now. Tell him not to come. Tell him to go far away until long past dawn, and stay safe.

But he knew it wouldn't work like that. It had to be this way.

Keeping the cloak tight around him, Harry set off up the hill to the Shrieking Shack. Wind batted at his face and stirred fretfully through his hair, tugging at the cloak, but he moved on. The potions pack was a familiar weight against his leg now, as comforting as a companion.

The front door, splintered by rain and wind and werewolf, had ceased being any kind of barrier or defence long ago. It swung uneasily on its rusting hinge, with an sinistercreak. Inside there was only colddarkness, no less sinister for the warm glow of the setting sun beyond the gaping, spider-crack windows. Breath held, Harry made his way in deathly quiet to the room he'd revisited for thirteen nights.

It seemed so unassuming. He moved into a gold-and-ruby pool of sunlight poured across the floorboards, fingers tight on his cloak. There were scattered crates and boxes, caked in dust and grime. He even thought he recognised which one would later be pushed over the tunnel entrance. There was a spindly old chair, a gnarled dresser and a great greying wardrobe, though no other furniture, nowhere to hide. The wardrobe wouldn't accommodate a person half his size. And the chance of Voldemort checking the room for intruders...

Cold prickled over the back of his neck. He wrapped his arms around himself, uncomfortably, and looked down at his feet. He was standing in the spot that Snape would fall, some hours from now.

Spotting something, he frowned and knelt down.

There were sizeable gaps in the rough floorboards. He managed to ease his fingertips just between the slats. Drawing his wand, he whispered " _Lumos_ ," and light beaded at the tip. He managed to wriggle it down between one of the larger gaps, and squinted.

There was a room beneath this one. He couldn't see what was down there, but it was worth a look.

If it was suitable, he could hide there. Snape would fall on this  _exact_  spot, and if his back was over one of the gaps, it would be all too easy to send up the spell. Voldemort would be unlikely to check every room in the building.

He hurried from the room and began to search.

It took a good hour, and he was almost ready to give up and squash himself into the wardrobe, when a search through a mountain of rusting pots and pans in the kitchen revealed a seam in the floor. He scrabbled through, shoving the pans aside.

The trap door gaped open, emitting deadair and cold dust into the dying glow of the sun. Harry leant over the edge and peered down.

A narrow oak staircase led into darkness. Before second thoughts could creep in, he picked up his wand and headed down beneath the floor, clinking softly with each step. He dragged the door shut behind him.

The room into which he descended was small and empty, bare grey walls, and one open door frame led the way to an uneven corridor. He followed it.

The dark seemed to be infectious, seeping through his skin and crawling about his veins, chilling him to the soul. There were no windows. He knew they must be underground, down into the hill upon which the Shrieking Shack stood.

At the end of the corridor was another door, heavy and made of oak. Whatever lay beyond was intended, very much, to stay beyond.

" _Alohomora!_ "

There was a crack from somewhere, and the door seemed to jerk, yielding like a broken pressure seal. Stale air gasped out. Harry flung up his wand, nerves alight.

The pale glow of his wand fell across a great many storage boxes and crates, clustered about the room like hiding refugees. He searched the room quickly, making sure there were no tunnels or passages – he was already certain that himself, Ron and Hermione would not arrive in this exact room. It was one near here, making the need for silence ever greater, but not this one. He was safe for now.

He dragged one of the crates to where sunset beaded through gaps in the ceiling. He clambered up, holding his wand high.

It was the right room. Triumph flushed him at his momentary victory – and then the realisation set in that this was it.

All he had to do was wait.

With great reluctance, he extinguished the light of his wand. Darkness descended. He closed his eyes, tightening his hand on the strap of his potion satchel.

By sunrise, it would all be over. One way or another. If things got out of hand, he knew he would have to accept defeat. He couldn't take risks, even if it meant watching Snape die before him yet again.

The hours began to crawl.

He didn't dare keep track of time. Risk-Taker's Law said that if he turned his wrist to see his watch, Voldemort would sweep into the room above and see it glinting beneath the floor. He didn't dare move, or speak, or breathe beyond silent, shallow gasps, and so time seemed not to pass. It barely seemed to exist at all. As he sat waiting, he wished he had brought Hermione, or Ron, or  _anyone,_ just someone to prove to him that he was still real and this was not the end of the universe. For one of the very first times, he was truly alone in his exploits. It frightened him more than anything else.

Where was Snape  _now?_

His present-time self could already be up at the castle, hunting for Ravenclaw's lost diadem. Perhaps already, McGonagall and Snape had duelled in rings of fire and great black serpents of smoke, and perhaps Snape had already made his exit from the castle.

Or perhaps it wasn't even that time yet. Perhaps Snape still sat in his rooms with a glass of wine, and Arthur Conan Doyle, waiting indifferently for news of the Carrows. Hidden behind a staircase whose password was Harry Potter.

Why, though? Why would Snape choose him, Harry, as the password to his private rooms? He could understand 'Dumbledore' as the password to his office – but Harry?

 _Who would guess it?_  he thought. He pulled one knee to his chest, resting his chin on it. It was still strange. He could imagine 'Lily', if what he'd seen in the pensieve was anything to go by. Snape had gotten so angry though, at any suggestion that it was Harry he cared for. He'd hated Harry. It was an indisputable fact.

The past few days had given Harry the feeling that there were many layers of Severus Snape left to go. Even discovering Snape's love for his mother, his loyalty to Dumbledore, hadn't uncovered the whole truth.

At that moment, a noise from somewhere in the house above made him freeze. There was a clatter, then the sound of footsteps over dusty floorboards – two pairs, Harry realised, with a thrill of horror. One slow and striding, in control. The other scuffled and unsteady. Someone stumbling, perhaps, or else being dragged.

The door of the room above burst open and clattered from its hinges, wood splintering in the force of Lord Voldemort's fury. Harry jumped. He clamped down, willing himself not to panic, not to be scared.

There was a flurry of motion over the gap in the floorboards. Voldemort's captive hit the wall where he was flung and let out a cry, sinking down, panting.

"You will sit there, Lucius.  _No!_ Do not speak. Do not address me. You should be glad of my mercy, that I bring you here rather than send you into the fray. It would give me interminable pleasure to see your carcass flung over the walls as a missile."

Lucius Malfoy's terrified gasps ceased on the spot. Harry's heart was pounding so loud he was sure they would hear, he would be discovered. Voldemort was unaware. He moved to the single chair, and let himself down upon it carefully.

"Now sit," he said quietly. "And do not advertise yourself to me as stress relief."

There was deathly silence for quite some time. Harry's entire body had become as rigid as Snape had in death, though his mind was ablaze. Voldemort was so close to him, so oblivious to his presence. As the minutes went on, Harry realised that they were sitting and doing precisely the same – thinking wildly, both clinging to plans that could go wrong in a thousand ways, both nurturing a duty they alone could fulfil. He had never been near Voldemort in this state. He had always seen the Dark Lord killing, murdering, giving orders, in action.

And yet here they sat, metres apart, Harry andVoldemort in silent contemplation. It was frighteningly human.

What felt like hours passed.

At last, Harry became aware of a soft hissing from above. The great snake Nagini was coiled in her master's lap and he was crooning to her, soothing her. In the corner, Lucius Malfoy had begun to pant in terror, clearly thinking that the order was being given for his death. Voldemort ignored him.

_"Master is going to put you in your cage, now... to keep you safe... will you let him? Master would hate to see harm come to his precious Nagini."_

She hissed softly in reply. Voldemort's wand sparked and Lucius howled, though there was no reason for him to fear. The great cage of stars had blossomed from Voldemort's wand, encasing Nagini, lifting her up into the air. Through the gaps in the floorboards, Harry could see her swirling almost playfully in her cage.

Voldemort stood.

 _"There... master shan't let anything happen to you."_ There was a pause.  _"Will Nagini do something special for her master? Will she do a little job for him?"_

The snake spoke back. Harry had rarely heard snakes reply – so often they were mute, although they understood, as if they didn't trust a human to comprehend in return.

 _"What does master need?"_ There was relish in the soft, serpentine voice.  _"Does master need the blonde man to die? May Nagini have him?"_

Voldemort chuckled with quiet, high amusement.  _"Not yet, little one._ _But s_ _omething like that."_

He turned away from the cage. He sat down again, slowly, and for some time there was no sound at all except the distant cries and bangs from the school, so far away.

"My Lord..." Lucius Malfoy was speaking. "My Lord... please... my son..."

"If your son is dead, Lucius, it is not my fault. He did not come and join me, like the rest of the Slytherins. Perhaps he has decided to befriend Harry Potter?"

"No – never..."

"You must hope not."

"Aren't – aren't you afraid, my Lord, that Potter might die at another hand but yours?" asked Malfoy, and Harry was beginning to realise why this sounded so familiar. His heart began to beat twice as hard, and he willed it to calm. "Wouldn't it be... forgive me... more prudent to call off this battle, enter the castle and seek him y-yourself?"

"Do not pretend, Lucius. You wish the battle to cease so that you can discover what has happened to your son. And I do not need to seek Potter. Before the night is out, Potter will have come to find me."

Beneath the floorboards, Harry took a moment to enjoy the irony of the situation. At the same time, he came to the decision that he needed to cut down on his own heroism. Seeking out Voldemort once was bad enough. Going back in time so he could do it again was even worse.

"Go and fetch Snape."

"Snape, m-my Lord?"

"Snape. Now. I need him. There is a – service – I require from him. Go."

Harry closed his eyes as Lucius stumbled from the room. He licked his dry lips, offering a silent prayer to any listening deity. Before him in the dark, he saw Snape's eyes all over again and watched their light go out, slip away from him, and then he could hear Grog's voice in his head.  _It was you, mate._  His fist clenched on his wand.

Ron, Hermione and his own present self would be heading for the Whomping Willow. Time evaded him again, knowing that at any moment Snape would arrive. So many things could go wrong.

He wished he could cry out to the version of himself that could be crouching metres away, wished he could say something, beg for help. He had never felt this alone. There was no Hermione with her spells. There was no Ron to drag him out of a freezing lake. There was no McGonagall, or Mr and Mrs Weasley, or Kingsley, or Hagrid, or Mad-Eye...

"Severus."

Harry froze. Snape's approach had slipped outside his consciousness, though Voldemort had noticed. As footsteps touched the dusty floorboards above, he felt his heart clench.

"Lucius Malfoy informs me you called for my presence, my Lord."

For thirteen nights Harry had heard only an echo of that voice, never quite right, never saying things that Snape would say. Now, it was so distinct. So alive. Harry felt a rush of desperate longing to keep that voice, not to let it slip away again.

"Yes..." Voldemort would be toying with the Elder Wand. Though Harry couldn't see, he could imagine it so clearly it was almost real. "I assume Lucius has now run screaming into the castle to find Daddy's Little Boy and smother him in kisses."

"His Lordship knows Lucius Malfoy so well."

"Never matter... I will find him again. Lucius has become so very easy to subdue, as of late." A sigh. "A great shame. I did enjoy his more – fiery – moments."

Something in Voldemort's voice made Harry feel distinctly uncomfortable. Snape did not seem to have an answer. There was quiet for some time before he spoke.

"The battle is proceeding with great success... I feel I must congratulate his Lordship for such a variety of approaches. The Acromantulas in particular – "

"I did not bring you here to discuss battle tactics, Severus."

There was silence. Harry's heart no longer seemed to be beating.

"Indeed, my Lord?"

"Indeed," said Voldemort, with a drop of quiet, morbid sarcasm. "I am fully aware that the battle proceeds exceptionally, though not all is well."

"But... my Lord, their resistance is crumbling – "

" – and it is doing so without your help. Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there... almost."

"Let me find the boy."

Harry's eyes closed.  _Let him_ , he willed,  _let him, let him_. If Snape had only left the Shrieking Shack and come to find Harry, explained to him the truth, none of this would need to happen.

"Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please."

"I have a problem, Severus."

"My Lord?"

"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"

The Elder Wand. Harry wanted to cry out –  _he's not the master, I am, I am. He doesn't have to die._

"My – my Lord? I do not understand. You – you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."

"No. I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary – "

 _Arrogant bastard_ , Harry thought.  _Let's see how extraordinary you are in another three hours._

" – but this wand... no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago. No difference."

Perhaps it was just knowing what was coming, but Harry thought he could feel Snape's fear this time. Snape knew what was about to happen. He knew, already, that he would die in this moment and there was no way to save himself. He was already dying.

"I have thought long and hard, Severus... do you know why I have called you back from the battle?"

"No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."

"You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."

"But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself – "

"My instructions to my Death Eaters have been perfectly clear. Capture Potter. Kill his friends – the more, the better – but..."

The words were becoming lost on Harry. He no longer seemed to register their meanings, heard them only as sounds, distant noises so irrelevant to the oncoming promise of death. He willed them to pass, willed them to hurry, but at the same time begged that it would all stop. He couldn't do it. It would go wrong. He would watch Snape die a second time and leave time itself in tatters for his trouble. It was happening too fast.

He could feel Voldemort's growing range, and now Snape's growing fear, and he wanted to scream.  _I'm here. I'm here. You won't die. Not this time._

At last, words registered in his mind once more. His focus sharpened. His heart pounded in his throat.

"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."

"My Lord!"

"It cannot be any other way. I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."

 _Not now. Not now._ He wanted to stop it. He wanted to curse and hex and jinx and wanted it to be Voldemort attacked, didn't want to hear Snape's screams, but there was no other way.

_"Kill."_

He clamped his hands over his ears, pleading silently, begging it to be over. Snape was screaming. He'd heard those screams in his nightmares. Above him there were thuds and bangs, and he could hear Snape struggling, heard the snake thrashing, then the thump.

Snape's knees hit the floor.

"I regret it."

Snape's body slid sideways, broken, falling across the gap in the floorboards. Harry rose up to his feet. Blood spattered his face, gushing from the wound on Snape's neck.

Voldemort left the room. The snake drifted after him, its light leaving the room dark, and quiet, and sombre.

He heard Hermione's gasp of "Harry!", and felt the crate pushed out of the way. He saw his own shadow flicker from beneath the invisibility cloak and rise up from the tunnel, and run to Snape's side, and from here he could see his own face looking down.

The first time, he hadn't realised there were tears in his eyes.

Snape seized the front of the boy's robes. Beneath the floor, Harry listened and watched, shocked at the anguish in his own face, the unmistakeable agony.

"Take... it..." That horrible noise, rasping, gurgling. "Take... it..."

Time was running out. He pressed the tip of his wand between the gap in the floorboards, waiting, not a muscle moving.

He watched the thoughts gush from Snape as he began to die, watched himself gather the substance with the tip of a shaking wand. He saw Snape's grip slacken on his own robes.

"Look... at... me..."

And beneath the floorboards, Harry closed his eyes.

" _Anatomortis_ ," he gasped through his tears. He felt Snape stiffen as the spell sank into his back; he saw the hand, fisted in his own robes, slide to the floor.

As he watched himself hurried back to the tunnel by Hermione, something painful was happening to his heart. He was fighting her. He hadn't even realised. Tears were leaking down his face, tears of shock and loss – then at last, something seemed to break in the despairing green eyes. He simply stopped fighting. He gathered up the cloak. The three disappeared back down the tunnel.

Beneath the floors, Harry seized the strap of his satchel and ran from the room, heading for the trap door.


	5. Deserved

Snape's eyes stared up at him from the floor, glassy and unresponsive. He knelt over the man, well aware that he was shaking uncontrollably. He ripped open the satchel and fumbled inside.

"Green's Solution, Green's Solution..." He yanked out one of the bottles and pulled out the cork with his teeth, spitting it away. He poured the shimmering green oil over his fingers.  _Apply Green's Solution directly to the bite marks until the venom has disappeared._ He pushed Snape's chin up, the better to see the mess of blood and leaking black venom.

He began to work the oil into the great rips in Snape's throat. There were multiple bites. He poured more and more Solution over his fingers until the floor and his clothes and Snape's hair was wet with oil, massaging the potion into each mark.

Every few seconds, he stopped to check. The wounds were now bleeding in scarlet. Several minutes had passed.

He scrabbled for his wand, blood and oil making his fingers almost too slippery to keep a grip.

" _Episkey_ ," he gasped. The wounds were too big. It wouldn't handle them all. " _Episkey, Episkey, Episkey!_ "

The skin around the bites began to prickle, stretching in, struggling to cover themselves. Blood was still pouring across the floor, dripping through to the room below. The spell wasn't enough.

"Salve... salve, salve – " He found it, unscrewing the lid rapidly and dunking his fingers into the thick balm. Fisting a hand in Snape's hair, he dragged his chin back up and began to apply the salve, rubbing it furiously into the skin.

The blood began to clot. He watched, wanting to laugh, wanting to scream with joy, the blood no longer spurting and pouring from the wounds. It was forming a thick black layer, then hardening rapidly, peeling off Snape's skin as it shrivelled. The wounds were scarring before Harry's eyes.

He wiped his hands quickly on his t-shirt – his clothes were ruined, and Snape's too. It didn't matter.

"Come on Mrs Mogwee..." he pleaded, and tugged one of the jars of Blood Regeneration Potion from the satchel. He fumbled with the lid, then finally got it undone. "Teaspoon, teaspoon..."

He got an arm under Snape's shoulders, dragging him up into a sitting position. The wizard lolled against Harry like a doll. Despite the shaking of his hands, he managed to pour out a spoonful of the potion and cradled the back of Snape's head. The man's mouth was open.

Harry pushed the spoon in.

"Take it," he gasped. "Take it, take it..." He threw the spoon aside, and began to rub Snape's throat, trying to get the muscles to work. Nothing was happening. They were dead, and lifeless, and unresponsive. Tears were cascading down Harry's cheeks. "Please,  _please..._ "

The spell. He realised suddenly and grabbed for his wand, pressing the tip of his wand into Snape's side.

" _Anatoprotis_!"

A great, full-body shudder seemed to take the man in his arms. Harry squeezed his throat muscles and felt them work, felt them swallow, the potion seeping into empty veins, and Harry stared desperately into Snape's face, the dead eyes.

Life flickered behind the black glass – so small, so tiny, that Harry didn't think it was possible at first.

Then the eyes focused, suddenly. Snape heaved.

The man doubled up and began to hack and cough, choking. Colour was rising in his face as blood began to beat through his arteries and veins. Harry, tears and blood and potion smeared across his cheeks, scrabbled for the satchel and pulled out a bottle of water. He ripped off the seal and pushed it into Snape's hands.

"Here, here!"

Snape was shaking too much to do it. Harry gripped his hair and pulled his head back, and as the mouth opened for water, Harry poured it down. Snape's eyes were shut as he drank like a baby lamb at a bottle, so weak, desperate.

And as he drank, his breathing began to settle. The convulsions of his chest were slowing; the colour was beginning to cool in his face.

From urgency beyond anything Harry had ever known, they drifted into stillness.

When two full bottles of water were gone, Snape turned his head to the third. Harry put it mutely to one side. Snape's eyes remained closed, his breathing still ragged, his chest rising and falling as he panted. A steady pulse sounded where Harry's fingertips touched the side of his throat. Numb, shocked, quietened, Harry held the other man and gazed down into his face, relishing the struggles of life that he saw there.

Quite some time went by.

Harry didn't dare speak, for fear of breaking the quiet between them. He simply watched Snape breathe. He felt as if he had done something more than heal, as if this moment was more than sitting with someone as they recovered. It was perversely like giving birth. Producing life. He cradled Snape and looked down at what he had made, what wonders he had caused, and prayed that he never went another day without seeing Severus Snape breathe.

Dawn had come. Sunlight like pale, liquid gold came through the only window not boarded up, lay across them like a blanket. In the distance, Harry could hear the cries of the battle at Hogwarts. People were still dying.

With the one extra life lying in his arms, it all seemed so far away.

Something warm seemed to be on his cheek. He reached up to touch it, fingertips bloody and grimy. When they came away from his face, some of the filth had been dappled away by tears.

He laughed, but the sound was hushed. He didn't want to spook Snape. All the same, the inescapable fact that he'd  _done it_  bubbled up inside him, made him feel wild. It was all over. He didn't have to see Snape die again. No more nightmares, no more guilt, no more regrets. He had to send an owl to Ron and Hermione, but didn't want to leave Snape.

"Potter..."

The sound took Harry by surprise. He'd not thought this far – hearing Snape speak, form words, think, feel.

"Professor... it's okay, you don't have to talk. I know it won't make sense now, but... but it will." He hesitated. "Do you want some chicken soup? I made two flasks. I thought... well, we're here for a while, and Ron says his mum makes it when he's ill. So - "

"Please be quiet."

Harry took the weak, whispered order and shut up, even if he was grinning all the same. He doubted he'd ever been so grubby before. He pressed his nose into Snape's hair on a whim, just to smell him, and savoured the scent that he found. Sweat and old books and Hogwarts and whatever powder the house elves used to launder Snape's bed linen.

Time went by without incident, drifting and safe. The distant battle was quiet now. He didn't know what time it was, didn't want to disturb Snape to see his watch. Voldemort might already be dead. At last, he felt Snape shift uncomfortably in his arms.

"Potter... the Dark Lord, you must – "

"It's okay," Harry said. Happiness welled up inside him at saying those words, and at last, he realised it really  _was_  okay. "He's dead. Soon, if not already. I killed him."

"What..."

"It's... it's complicated. I promise I'll tell you everything. Just... just trust me for now. He dies." Harry couldn't resist tightening his arms around Snape. "It all turns out okay..."

"Lucius... his family, I – "

"They're fine... they get through okay. They find Draco. Draco's mother... she saves my life. Everything's okay."

"But... Minerva – "

"She's fine, just... please relax?" Harry hesitated. "I don't want you to get ill. I had to use a lot of stuff on you. Everything goes smoothly. There's nothing we can do anyway, if it didn't... please just relax."

"Nothing – " Snape began, and jerked suddenly, letting out a hiss of pain. It sent thrills through Harry, who didn't know why. The older wizard panted for a few moments until the pain subsided. "Nothing involving you ever goes smoothly, Potter."

Harry closed his eyes, grinning, putting his cheek to the top of Snape's head.

"It does," he said quietly. "It goes just perfectly, some days. Even if it takes a second try."

* * *

It was some time before Snape felt strong enough to stand briefly. The room looked like the sight of a massacre, blood and venom and potion spilt everywhere, and the floor was uncomfortable for Snape to lie on. There was a lounge down the hall with a sofa; it was here that they headed.

Snape swatted at the hands that came up to steady him, however much he was shaking.

"I can walk on my own, Potter, do not patronise me!"

Harry swallowed and stood back. Quelling the urge to touch, to help, was incredibly difficult. It was like watching a baby deer take its first few steps. Snape was unsteady on his feet, too stubborn for his own good, and Harry's heart stung at the visible pain racking Snape's face with each step.

"Okay. You can curse me all you like later but I'm not just going to watch you struggle – " He moved nearer. Stubbornly he slid himself under one of Snape's arms, dragging up his weight. "Better?"

Snape said nothing. Harry saw his jaw clench but did not let go. Together they stumbled down the hall, struggling against each other until they had at last reached the lounge. It was with relief that Harry lowered Snape to the sofa. The other man sagged there, grimacing with pain, fingers curled into claws on the moth-eaten padding.

"Where does it hurt?"

Snape was panting faintly, eyes closed. "Which draft did you counter the venom with?"

"Green's Solution."

Surprise, quickly smothered, registered on Snape's face. He attempted to stretch out his legs. "The pain is to be expected. The venom – " He inhaled sharply. " – takes some time to be fully cleansed."

That word, 'cleansed', reminded Harry of their dishevelled, blood-spattered state. He drew his wand.

"Put it away," Snape hissed.

"But – "

" _Put. It. Away._ "

"You're covered in blood, look at you! You can't – "

Snape's eyes widened with impending fury and he drew in a breath to shout at Harry, order him down, but the sudden rush of air caught in his lungs. He began to choke. Harry hurried forward and knelt down, trying to hold Snape's arms, concerned nonsense coming instinctively from his lips.

_Wham._

Harry staggered backwards, reeling from the strike.

He hit the opposite wall and slumped uselessly to the floor, panting with the pain, hands over his eye, feeling broken glass. Snape was still hacking. Harry didn't dare get up and go to him. The pain was excruciating, beyond anything he'd thought Snape could cause, and he knew now that his sympathy was unwelcome. Something hot and tight, something entirely unpleasant, was filling his chest. It felt like betrayal.

At last, Snape's breath began to come steady once more, cold silence falling over the room. Harry stayed where he was. He didn't dare look anymore. Snape's voice came rough towards him, cracked from his coughing fit.

"I do not require a nursemaid," he seethed. "Do not touch me."

Harry said nothing. There was silence for a long time, steadily growing more and more uncomfortable, until at last even Snape couldn't hold.

"I did not hit you hard," he muttered. "Get up. Get up, boy, nobody here appreciates your desperate never-ending quest for attention."

Harry's eyes stayed closed, his cheek pressed to the damp peel of the wallpaper. The numb hollow of his mind was filled by faces – Fred, and Remus and Tonks, smiling at him from quite far away.

"Get up, Potter! If this is some attempt at inspiring guilt, you will fall miserably short. Get up and stop acting like a child."

_Child_. It hurt more than Harry expected. The blood and dried potion and tears were itching on his face now. He thought of the past few days, the smoke and the books and the nightmares and pickled frog, the flouted laws, the ghost he'd become in the search for another's life. All of it stained his skin, great encrusted layers of it. Beneath, there was only the space left by his illusion's departure.

" _UP, Potter!_ "

Harry tried to imagine getting angry. It wouldn't come. Instead, whispered only: "Go fuck yourself."

Snape gave a bark of laughter. "I see. The required praise has not yet been directed your way, has it not? I have yet to get down on my knees, and kiss your robes, and say thank you Potter, wondrous Potter. I am forever indebted to marvellous Potter and the fact that he has finally developed the sense to carry anti-venom. I  _do_  apologise. Would you prefer a symphony or an ode, Potter, or perhaps both? I'm afraid it could take some time before the firework display is in order."

Harry was reliving the moment he'd first seen Remus Lupin on the train to Hogwarts. How he'd given them all chocolate after the Dementor attack. He thought of all their lessons together, the gentle smile in Lupin's eyes, the encouragement at each tiny step he ever took.  _We want you to be godfather._ Heat stung his eyes.

"I saved your life," he managed, weakly.

"Then you have repaid me, Potter, and this pathetic display of infantile un-appreciation is unwarranted. Get up."

"I've  _suffered_  for... for this... for you..."

Another laugh. "You don't know the meaning of the word 'suffer'. The pains I have taken on your behalf – "

Harry stopped listening. He swallowed around the lump in his throat, too weak to fight the heat in his eyes, and sank back into thoughts of Remus.

" – and so, you'll excuse me if I find your suggestion laughable. Being equipped with antidote does not constitute suffering. Now get off the floor."

Harry reached under his cloak, now stiffed with blood. He found the tiny glass cage of the Time-Turner and took it off over his head, feeling it catch on his ears and in his hair. He threw it across the room at Snape.

There was silence.

"A Time-Turner," Snape said. He sounded numb. "Where did you get this, Potter? These are strictly-regulated magical objects."

Harry didn't reply. He let Snape put together the various implications, feeling savage now, bitter, hating the man all over again.

"Is this a suggestion?" Snape said, but Harry knew from his tone that he wasn't half as ignorant as he presented. "That I take us back and you can let me die, hmm?"

"I'm already back." Pointlessly. All his efforts, and he had a black-eye to show for it. "Thirteen days... I couldn't sleep. I kept... kept seeing you die, watching it over and over. And I thought that... that if I came back..."

He reached up, pressing the heel of his palm to his burning eyes.

"I made clotting salve, and the Solution... I found the Regeneration potion, I used  _anatomortis_... Hermione's Time-Turner..."

_I do not require a nursemaid. Do not touch me._

"You know what, Snape, you're welcome... fuck you. Go fuck yourself. Trust me to think you'd be thankful. It's not like Remus and Tonks are lying dead in the ground and their son's orphaned. Not like you laid in the Shrieking Shack for thirteen days and nobody buried your corpse, and it's not like I cared."

There was silence. He wiped the tears angrily on the back of his hand, shaking with disappointment.

"I should have left you dead," he spat. "You got what you deserved after all."

"Get out," Snape croaked. He sounded weak.

For once, Harry was happy to obey. He uncurled himself from the floor and wiped away the last tear, face set in bitter disappointment, aware of Snape staring at him. He left the room. Only when he was back down the corridor, the door slammed behind him, did he sink to his knees and push his fingers into his hair, and howl into the bloodstains.

* * *

Snape had gone. He'd gone hours ago now, audibly closing the door behind him, because there was nothing to keep him here. Harry had to stay for thirteen days, not Snape. He didn't know why he'd not realised it before. Why hadn't it occurred to him? Deep down, he knew it was all another part of his illusion. He'd expected Snape to stay out of gratitude to his saviour, keep Harry company for the thirteen days he was on the substitute bench of existence.

But these were the actions of a Snape he'd never known - one that existed only in his hopes. It was fitting that the day one side of Snape survived, was the day the other died.

Harry had shrunk a few things into his bag, knowing they'd be needed for the thirteen days – clean clothes, pajamas, a duvet, two pillows, some other things. As he fashioned himself a nest on the blood-stained floor of his cell, he almost laughed that he'd expected Snape to share a duvet with him. Outside the window, the sun was slowly melting over the horizon.

It was one day since Voldemort had been defeated.

In thirteen days, he could go home to the Burrow. He could move on, and mourn Remus and Tonks, and go to Fred's funeral, and sleep easy in the knowledge that once again, Gryffindor honour and love had failed.

Stirring in his nest, cold despite the duvet, he craned his head to look up at the moon. Somewhere, his other self would be unable to sleep as well, missing Snape, looking up at the same lonely moon.

He lifted a hand to his black-eye.

Somewhere outside, there came the noise of footsteps. Harry hesitated. He reached for his wand, lying on the windowsill beside his nest, and sat up. His instinct was to reach for his glasses but they were broken now, one lens shattered. He didn't know how to mend glass as well as Hermione, and could only ruin them even more – his thirteen days would be spent blind as well as bitter and lonely.

He heard the door of the shack open, and the footsteps staggered inside. Harry gripped his wand tightly. A shadow moved in front of the door, and seemed to pause, then stepped closer.

Snape looked in at him. Harry's jaw set. He ignored the fact that Snape was white-pale and exhausted, and looked more than a little ill.

"Leave me alone," Harry bristled.

Snape opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. For a moment Harry savoured his triumph of reducing Snape to speechlessness – then he saw the other wizard's eyes slide, and his knees buckle.

Harry scrambled out of bed and ran to the door, kneeling beside Snape's unconscious form.

"Prat...  _prat_ , climbing hills, you only died this morning..." He checked for a pulse – it was there. He tried to ignore his relief. Scooping his hands under Snape's arms, he dragged the other wizard across the floor and slung him onto the nest, gasping with the effort.

Snape was heavier than he remembered. Noticing a distortion at the man's chest, he frowned and tugged open Snape's Death Eater robes.

A bag, evidently from Hogsmeade, was hidden there. He pulled it out.

Fire-whiskey. Harry wasn't even legally entitled to drink it yet, but Merlin, he wanted it. A copy of the Evening Prophet –  _You-Know-Who Dead; Ministry confirms._  Mint shower-gel, bizarrely. Then at the bottom, wrapped in tissue, a small brown bottle. Harry glanced at the label.

_Candlewick and Sons, Black-Eye Rub._

Harry looked down at Snape's drip-white face, his hand tight around the bottle.

Snape lay unconscious and still against Harry's chest as the Gryffindor measured out a teaspoon of Blood Regeneration Potion. Tilting the other wizard's head back, he dealt him the spoon. This time when Harry rubbed his throat, Snape swallowed almost at once. The colour blazed back into his cheeks, though he didn't wake.

Gathering the covers around them both, Harry settled back against the pillows and let himself get lost in thought. He began to smooth Snape's grubby hair with his fingertips.

* * *

Severus woke during the night.

His head whirled for a moment, lurching in great staggering steps towards consciousness and depositing him in a heap on the other side. He squeezed his eyes tight shut and waited for the imbalance, the pounding, to pass. Distantly he registered that Potter had given him Blood Regeneration Potion again. He couldn't remember passing out, nor could he remember getting into Potter's bundle of duvet and pillows.

As his vision began to settle, the focus returning, it was Potter's face that his eyes came across first.

The boy had evidently been supporting him against his chest and fallen asleep in the position. Now he laid beside the older wizard, snug at his side, one arm still draped over Severus's chest. Severus was uncomfortably reminded of two candles melting side-by-side, sloping together.

He removed Potter's arm. The touch, though not unpleasant, was not welcome.

The boy may have saved his life, or returned to correct his death, whichever way – but Severus owed nothing.  _Nothing_. The boy had seven years of blood and sweat to repay before Severus had any kind of debt or obligation or gratitude to feel. That was certain in his mind.

All the same. Beneath the closed eyelids was breath-taking green; spoilt now. He looked down at the putrid blotching around the boy's eye. Lily's eyes in Potter's face with Snape's damage.

He had not hit Potter that hard. He'd barely pushed him. Potter was overly delicate.

No matter that he had apparently defeated the Dark Lord.  _Again_. Most wizards were delicate. They weren't used to physical combat, and so no wonder a simple swat brought them up in all kinds of bruising. Potter was the type. Too busy in flashing lights and tickling charms and disarming anything he could.

Had Potter truly defeated the Dark Lord? Again?

Perhaps this was actually death. Hell was in fact void of fire, brimstone and demons with pointy forks. It consisted of Potter in the Shrieking Shack for an eternity of damnation.

Had Potter truly brewed Green's Solution? Severus was inclined to doubt it. Someone had brewed Green's Solution, he knew that much – the pain throughout his muscles and nerves was not nearly as intense as mass-produced Green's Solution would cause. It was home-made. Potter would have recruited Horace Slughorn to his cause. It could not be Granger. If Granger had been involved, the remedy would be theoretically flawless and crippling him as it sluggishly purged the venom. Someone with a far more skillful, personal touch to potion-making had assisted.

Potter could not have brewed Green's Solution, nor had he made blood-clotting salve, nor had he mastered  _Anatomortis_.

Then why did it seem so credible?

Uncomfortable in his thoughts, Snape closed his eyes and hauled the covers up around his neck, wincing at the ache in his arms. Thinking at night-time was a mistake. Cold, merciless daylight would settle his thoughts and bring him a bite of truth.

Just as he was dropping off, he felt Potter stirring in his sleep. He opened one eye.

The boy had rolled onto his back, disturbing the covers slightly; his face was turned Severus's way. The moon fell over him with a truth that daylight had never offered.

Potter looked strangely like Lily in his sleep. It was impossible to see by the sun – just a slight curve to his jaw, something in the angle of his nose, something more open than James Potter had appeared. The lips, too. Softer, a more defined cupid's bow, not as thin and wicked as James Potter had appeared.

Briefly he thought of Harry Potter's first week at Hogwarts. The brat had come up during the staff meeting. "Doesn't he look like his father?" Everyone had said it. They latched onto the scruffy black hair and some shapes in his face. No doubt Potter had heard it all his life. Been shown photographs. Sirius Black had been convinced that there was not a shred of difference between the boy and the dead man, in appearance and personality and attitude. Nobody ever mentioned the influence of Lily in her son's face, too busy with the initial effect of James.

As he looked, and languished in the past, Severus couldn't help but wonder.

Why had Potter come back for him?

He thought of the many vile elements of James that were in the boy, that lingering influence of the father that had driven him for years to do bloody stupid things and behave like the golden boy of the whole bloody universe. It was still there. A stain that would never be erased.

But perhaps, at last, the mother was shining through.

James Potter had been fifteen years old from cradle to the grave. The eternal school boy. Lily had been much older, so much more mature, so defined and informed and possessing so much sense. Her comprehension of decency, and fairness, and honour, had made her a true Gryffindor. Potter had been reckless. Lily had known true bravery.

How long was it until Potter was eighteen? Not long. His birthday was at some point during the summer.

Perhaps maturity would bring about the rise of Lily.

It would be a disaster, of course. An absolute disaster. The most catastrophic development of events to strike Severus since he first saw Lily laughing at Potter's jokes across the Great Hall during dinner. A recipe for the world's most dangerous individual.

Lily's decency and maturity, and sense of care, in the youthful body of a talented Seeker. Her eyes and her kindness in James Potter's damnable good looks.

Severus realised he was staring and scowled at himself, angry. Potter's attractiveness would not become an issue. His father's influence would forever be present and that,  _that_ , was an impenetrable barrier.

Severus jerked the covers as he turned onto his side, away from Potter.

_Leave me alone_ , he had said. Severus was happy to, as soon as this was over. They would part ways and that would be that. Debts repaid. No reason for Potter to seek him out.

No reason at all.


	6. The Clash of Wands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Thank you all so much for your comments and kudos on this fic. I'm really glad you're enjoying it. The notifications are the light of my day - so thank you. <3 *

 

Harry woke late the next morning; sunlight was already dappled across the floor of the shack. In his first waking moments he registered that something was missing, some weight in his arms had been taken. He reached out for it, sleepily. Although he couldn't remember his dream, he'd enjoyed it a lot.

Reality dawned. His eyes snapped open and searched the room quickly.

Snape was still here. He sat on the one chair, looking even grimier and more uncomfortable than last night, last night's Evening Prophet open in his hands. Distaste had taken his face.

Harry sat up, watching the other man tentatively. He didn't quite know how Snape would react this morning.

The black eyes flitted up to him, then back to the paper.

"Morning," Harry tried. There was no reply, though the look on Snape's face wasn't too unfriendly. It was a good sign. He eyed the multitude of new scars on the other wizard's neck. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes." The reply was stiff and apparently untruthful. "Apologies if I woke you."

"No, it's okay..."

There was quiet, not particularly comfortable. Harry looked down into the bundle of duvet heaped around him. To his surprise, it was Snape that broke the quiet.

"The... venom shan't be completely purged from my system for a little over a week."

"Oh right," said Harry, unsure why he was being told this. Snape still had the newspaper open and was reading, as if their topic of conversation was casual.

"As a result of which, I may be prone to fluctuations in blood levels. Lapses in consciousness. Particularly when under emotional or physical exhertion."

At last, Harry realised what Snape was actually saying. "Oh." He fought to keep his face impassive, knowing where sympathy and concern had gotten him so far, though hope stirred in his chest all the same. He didn't know why he  _wanted_  to care for Snape. He just did. "Okay, I see."

"Ideally I would contact St Mungo's, though my... notoriety makes this avenue of action unavailable. So I shall be encroaching on your hospitality, Potter." He looked as if he had a rather bad taste in his mouth. Harry realised how much pride this must be costing him.

"It's okay... I think I'd appreciate the company. I don't mind... you know, assisting and stuff. It's not a problem."

There was silence. They both knew that there was no 'assisting' about it; Harry was needed. The thought of being in Harry's debt looked as if it was torture to Snape. No wonder he'd brought expensive fire-whiskey – it was effectively payment. Like some medical form of prostitution, Harry thought.

"That ointment will do little good in the bottle," Snape said quietly into the pages of his newspaper. Harry glanced at the windowsill. His black-eye rub still sat there, untouched from last night.

"Neither will the alcohol," he decided. He reached for the whiskey bottle and uncorked it. Snape watched, somewhat disbelieving.

"Potter. It's barely ten."

Harry drank from the bottleneck, feeling the rough rasp of the whiskey burn down his throat. He coughed into his fist. Then he thrust the bottle at Snape.

"We're stuck here together for a week," he reminded.

Snape drank. "Possibly two." He drank again. Harry watched without comment, then took the bottle back and corked it. It had to last.

"Listen, we'll... make a pact," he said. "Whatever goes on here. I won't tell if you don't. That way we're both... equal, and all that. We don't have to worry about the outside world. Right?"

Snape looked as if he'd rather cut out his own tongue than enter into some kind of pact with Harry. All the same, uncomfortable agreement suggested itself in his eyes. He picked up the paper again without a word.

"Okay," Harry said. He shifted. "That's sorted then."

"Use your ointment."

_It hurts to look at it, doesn't it? My mother's eyes. Blackened by you. She'd hate you for it and you know it._

"Alright." Harry took the little bottle from the side. He unscrewed it quietly and dabbed some of the oil on his fingertips. There was silence for a little while.

"From whom did you receive the Green's Solution?" Snape asked quietly, as if he had only just become suspicious.

"Well, I made it. I used Slughorn's ingredients."

"You never could lie convincingly, Potter."

Harry shrugged, daubing the ointment gently around his eye. Snape watched with a slight frown.

"You can call me a liar all you want... I made it. It's amazing what a good book can do sometimes."

"Mm."

"Besides... I was terrible at Potions, fine. Only because you scared the life out of me."

Snape's eyebrow quirked. "Indeed."

"Yeah, 'indeed'." Harry wasn't entirely sure where this reckless honesty had come from – maybe it was knowing that Snape was no longer a threat, but also no longer his teacher. He continued to rub ointment into his eye. "And I've gotten good at Potions, now you're not teaching me. Funny how when you taught me Defence Against The Dark Arts, my marks plummeted in that."

"How curious."

"So I'd appreciate a little credit, thanks. I made the blood clotting salve too, and there are five other antidotes in my satchel. I made them all on my own. So maybe I'm not such an idiot."

"Perhaps." Snape raised the paper again, turning the page. "I hate to point out the obvious, Potter, but your ointment may have more effect if you rubbed it around the correct eye."

"... right. Thanks." Colour rising in his face, Harry daubed more oil on his fingertips. "The pact is already in effect, by the way."

"Is it."

"Yes. And it's not my fault there isn't a mirror."

"I see."

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

"Okay... if you are, I've still got, you know... soup and stuff. You can just say." There was a pause. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Potter, be quiet. I'm trying to read."

This answer was more honest than Harry had expected – he hardly heard the actual words. All he heard was 'no'. He glanced at Snape's face and realised that his eyes were not following lines.

He stood, suddenly aware of how very thin his pajamas were. He tried not to think about it. Approaching Snape warily, he reached out to touch the grime on his face.

Snape shot up a hand and grabbed his wrist, hard.

"Stop it," he said. "Now. Stop this touching me."

"Please... just let me clean the blood from your face. It's not healthy."

"I will clean myself."

"Why won't you let me clean you? Why does it bug you so much? Yesterday - ..." Grim silence. Taboo topic, Harry noted. He changed tack. "It's not like... not like I'm giving you a sponge bath. It's just a cleaning charm. It's easier if someone else does it. They can get everywhere."

Silence.

"Will you do me, if I do you?" he tried.

More silence.

"You don't trust me with spells, do you?" Harry felt his heartbeat quickening uncomfortably. "Why? I'm not an idiot. You saw my OWL results. I'm of age. I'm not... not dangerous. Please."

Snape's silence was becoming infectious. Harry could hear his own breath now, quick, nervous.

"What if I did it with... with a cloth or something? No magic?"

The faintest flicker in Snape's eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. The line of his shoulders was as rigid and unforgiving as rock. "No, Potter."

"You're just... going to sit all covered in blood and muck for two weeks?"

There was no reply. Harry allowed it for a moment, then onto a few seconds, until the grave silence between them had stood for nearly a full minute. A decision reached itself in Harry's head.

If Snape wouldn't accept his help, he would enforce it. He had a duty.

He drew his wand. Snape's eyes widened and he opened his mouth, eyes blazing, but Harry got there first.

" _Scourgify!_ " he cried.

Snape disappeared in a cloud of suds and water that splashed across the floor, washing his paper away. There was a rigorous scrubbing sound, and a lot of wild, spluttered curses coming Harry's way. Occasionally an arm flailed out of the heaving mass of bubbles. Harry stood and watched, wondering if Snape would retaliate in kind or just kill him. The odds were weighted towards the latter of the two.

At last, with a great gushing sound, the cloud ejected Snape onto the floor. The bubbles popped; the water evaporated; Snape sat, spitting suds, soaked to the skin but exceptionally clean.

Harry was about to try a drying charm when he caught the flash of Snape's wand.

A jet of water hit him in the stomach, so intense it blasted him off his feet. He hit the ground and shook his sopping hair out of his eyes, more water cascading down from nowhere. He struggled and gasped for air, only gulping down a lungful or two before another wave crashed over him.

Barely able to see, he struggled to his feet and pelted for the door. Snape was after him in a heartbeat.

" _Stupefy!_ "Harry howled, flashing the curse loosely over his shoulder. It blasted through a window and left a smoking hole in the boards.

A jet of bright yellow light missed his elbow by inches. He swung around the banister of the stairs and darted up, Snape on his tail.

" _Stupefy!_ " he cried. A vase burst and shattered into pieces in its staircase alcove.

He felt Snape get a hand in the back of his jumper and screamed, struggling until he was released and kicking out with his foot. Whether it connected or not, he didn't know. He pounded up the stairs and fled into the first room he saw, throwing the door after him. Snape hit it a moment later and began to bang with his fists, the wood trembling.

" _Open this door at once!_ "

"No! You'll kill me!"

" _Open it, Potter!_ " More blows rained down on the door, then a snarled spell. Harry didn't catch the enchantment. Instantly, the wood seemed to sizzle and blacken, crumbling in on itself, revealing a furious Snape on the other side. Harry aimed.

" _Levicor -_ "

Snape sent the curse reeling with a slash of his wand, but before he could retaliate, Harry had gasped, " _Protego!_ " Another bolt of light fired off and punched a hole through the roof. Mortar and tile showered through.

Bullets of light flew in all directions, curses and jinxes smashing windows and destroying furniture, coloured smoke rising hazily through great wounds ripped in the walls and roof.

For nearly twenty minutes the battle continued. Harry felt as if every curse known to man had been aimed at him. Several had hit. A great burn streaked the side of his face, multiple cuts riddled across his chest and arms beneath his shredded clothing, and he could not stop hiccupping acid green bubbles, giving away wherever he tried to hide. He was still drenched from the water attack. Twice he'd disarmed Snape, and once ripped off the sleeve of his robe, but defeat didn't seem to be an option.

When he blasted the wand out of Snape's hand for a third time, he didn't wait around for Snape to recapture it. He turned and took off running back down the stairs, leaping into the nearest airing cupboard and slamming the door after him.

Silence descended over the house.

Harry could imagine people down in Hogsmeade staring up at the flashes and bangs coming from the windows of the Shrieking Shack, muttering about angry spirits and going on their way. An eerie, threatening sort of calm was following the destruction. He knew better than to assume this was some kind of armistice.

A minute or two passed. His knuckles had gone white in his hand, expecting the door to be wrenched open at any moment. He hiccupped another bubble, watching it pop on the cupboard ceiling.

It was after ten minutes of silence that he realised what must have happened.

Cold guilt filled him. He pushed open the door of the cupboard and crawled out, heading quickly upstairs, following the path of gaping holes in the walls and broken household items.

His clothes were in tatters, t-shirt hanging off his shoulders from the multiple rips and tears. He'd assumed they could get through two weeks just by washing the clothes they were in. Now, he wasn't so sure. Hiccupping another bubble, he pointed his wand to his throat and muttered the counter-charm.

He found Snape on the floor of the bedroom. It didn't look as if Lupin and his friends had gotten to this room. The furniture was mostly intact, a few sizzling holes here and there, a blasted painting of a fruit basket smoking in one corner. Snape was flat on his back at the end of the bed, unconscious.

Harry approached, and dropped to his knees.

Snape was a mess. More of Harry's curses had found their target than he first thought. There was a raw, shiny burn across the man's shoulder, and a lot of bruising about his chest, boils breaking out over his stomach. Where Snape's left sleeve had fallen, Harry didn't know. The loose, wispy threads around his shoulder were almost pitiful. Sadly, Harry pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes and leant over Snape, checking his pulse was okay.

He paused, feeling the heart fluttering under his fingertips.

"You're not unconscious, are you."

"No."

Snape's voice was quiet. He didn't open his eyes, though nor did he surge up and throttle Harry to within an inch of his life.

"Why are you...?"

"I intended to curse you off the face of the earth when you came to tend to me."

"Oh." Harry wondered if this was his cue to start running again. He shifted. "Why aren't you...?"

"I'm not entirely sure."

Harry wasn't either. So long as Snape wasn't trying to drown him anymore. He sat beside the other wizard on the singed axminster, feeling water drip down the back of his neck, his burns and cuts prickling uncomfortably.  _At least we're both clean_ , he thought.

"The villagers will most likely be calling for a Ministry of Magic representative," Snape said quietly. "I doubt they'll let this go un-noticed."

"I've got my cloak. We can use that... or we can just hide somewhere until they're gone. It'll be okay. They think the house is haunted anyway."

"Why do I want to kill you so badly, Potter?"

"I don't know." A thought occurred to Harry. "Probably the same reason I wanted to save you."

"What reason would that be?"

"An end to torment," said Harry quietly. He hugged his wet knees to his chest. His torn t-shirt was inching its way off his shoulder, bearing more burns to the smoky air. "One kind or another."

"Yes. I can empathise with that."

"I'm sorry I washed you."

"Mm."

"And I'm sorry I... ripped out a chunk of your hair."

"...what?"

"It's only a small chunk."

"... oh, well. That makes it perfectly acceptable."

"I said I'm sorry."

Snape muttered something wordless. He still hadn't opened his eyes. He stretched a little on the floor, wincing, trying to ease the aches in his body. More for compensation than anything else, he flicked his wand.

Something seemed to grasp Harry by the ankles. There was a bang, and he yelled, scrabbling for the floorboards as he was wrenched upside down. He dangled in midair, swinging faintly. Without correct gravity keeping it in place, his torn rag of a t-shirt slipped down his arms and fluttered to the floor. He struggled weakly, bare except for his jeans, but didn't have the strength to try properly. He fell still.

"Put me down?" he tried.

Snape, one eye open, watched him swing for a little while. "You should have been in my house, Potter."

"I... what?"

"You would have made an excellent Slytherin. Rather... Slytherin would have made you excellent."

"Um... that's great, and I'm flattered. I really am. But can you put me down? The blood's pooling in my ears. And I'm sort of half-naked."

A drop of water fell from his hair to the carpet.

"And wet."

Snape paused for a moment. Then he frowned, as if at something in his own thoughts, and closed his eyes once more. He tapped his wand.

Harry winced, expecting to crash down to the floorboards – instead, he found himself almost lowered. He dropped only the last few centimetres, landing in a soft pile on the wood. Aching all over, the blood pounding in his head, he laid where he was and tried to find his breath.

"We are barely into our second day," Snape said from somewhere nearby. "We have had two major conflicts already, one involving major structural damage to the property and the destruction of most of our clothing. I doubt this is going to work, Potter."

"We're just having some set-backs, that's all..." He paused. "You have to trust me."

"I can't."

"Why?"

Snape said nothing. Harry heard him shift, trying to sit up, and then give a groan and decide against the idea. Lifting his head off the floor, Harry eyed his ex-professor for a few moments of silent thought.

"We need new clothes..."

"I shall go into Hogsmeade."

"But what if you collapse?"

"A risk worth taking."

Something in Snape's voice said there would be no talking him out of it. Harry had taken one liberty today; he decided to give Snape the benefit of the doubt. He stayed quiet and pressed his cheek against the floor, noting that it was surprisingly comfortable.

"It's nice in here."

"Mm?"

"This room. And at least it's a proper bed... one of us could have it."

"We are not duelling for the bed."

"I wasn't suggesting it!"

"Excellent. Then you shan't mind me taking it."

"But – "

"Thank you, Potter. Very noble of you to surrender the one decent bed in the house to the one with the serious medical condition and the ageing back. I'm intently pleased that we managed to work through this issue without significant injury to either of us."

"But it's a double bed!" Harry protested. "Look at the size of it, we... we could – "  _Sleep together_. That would sound wrong.  _Share a bed_. That was also wrong.  _Cuddle up._ That was worse. " – come to an agreement."  _Oh great._

Predictably enough, Snape's eyebrow lifted. Harry held his ground for about five seconds, then crumbled.

"... or I'll sleep downstairs," he mumbled, looking at the floor.

"Yes, Potter. I think that would be best."


	7. Warm

 

It was night-fall before Snape made the decision to leave the safety of the house. Harry was glad of it, even though he didn't voice his feelings.

If Harry himself was seen, it could lead to some suspicious questions and trouble with the Ministry. If Snape was seen, and by the wrong person, it could lead to Snape's death. Voldemort's followers were already being rounded up and imprisoned, even this soon after his destruction. Not all of the punishment was law-enforced. Most was vigilante. Snape would be high on the wanted list; Harry didn't want to see all his troubles lead only to an even more unjust death. At least the darkness would provide some protection.

"I doubt this will take long," Snape said, standing in the door of the lounge. He was buttoning his cloak to the neck. "One shirt should be enough for you."

"Stick to small shops, won't you?"

Snape said nothing. Harry didn't press the matter, embarrassed by the concern he'd heard in his own voice.

"Could you get me a copy of the Daily Prophet?" he asked. Snape nodded curtly. Pulling the blankets up around his throat, Harry turned his cheek against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. "Sure I can't come?"

"Potter; I am certain. Under no circumstances are you to leave this house. Not only are you under-dressed, but I refuse to be embroiled in some legal scandal over Time-Turners."

Snape paused in the doorway, looking back at Harry.

"You will stay here," he said quietly. It was both an order and a threat. "Potter. Do you understand?"

"I'll stay here, I promise. I don't actively go looking for trouble, contrary to popular opinion."

"Mm," was the last thing Snape said to him, before turning and leaving the house. Harry heard the door close behind him.

Awkward, lonely silence descended on the shack. Harry stirred, wishing there was some sound to break the stillness, hoping Snape wouldn't be long. Even reluctant company was company. Their fight earlier had been liberating somehow, released tension and stress Harry wasn't aware of holding. Something seemed to have broken between them, like an air hole punched through black ice.

He decided to have a bath. Snape would probably be home ( _home? When did this place become home?)_ by the time he was finished.

The bath itself was old and stood on tarnished brass feet, the water gulping and gasping from the tap as air expelled itself from the system. The house's intermittent creaks and murmurs kept him at a safe distance from any kind of relaxation. Afterwards, he sat on tiled floor and pressed a cold flannel to his burns for a while, wishing he'd asked Snape to buy some kind of remedy. There would be a charm, maybe. He'd ask when Snape got back.

Pulling his jeans back on, he retreated to his nest in the lounge and shivered under his duvet for a while.

It was too cold.

June at Hogwarts wasn't usually this biting – then again, he wasn't usually out at night and half-dressed when he was at Hogwarts, nor was there lingering, prickling doubt creeping its way into his heart.

The night was darkening outside the cracked windows. He checked his watch, but couldn't remember what time Snape had gone out. It felt like quite a while. He refused to come to the inevitable conclusion – it would only make him feel more stupid when Snape walked in at any moment. Things would be fine. He thought of the night chill sneaking down the streets of Hogsmeade, nipping at skin, seeping into muscles and nerves already weakened by snake venom. He closed his eyes.

He was already fussing over Snape. They would only have another fight. It wasn't normal to feel this protective over someone who hated him.

Another hour crept by. Harry finished the chicken soup, barely aware of its taste or texture, his thoughts elsewhere, eyes on the sky outside. Eleven o' clock was approaching.

The fire-whiskey burnt uncomfortably as he drank, two mouthfuls, too nervous to take any more. The alcohol did nothing to thaw his anxiety. He paced the entrance way, bottle held tight in both hands, no longer aware of the cold.

Eventually he came to stand by the open front door, staring out over the town.

He could see glimpses of the winding streets and searched them, breath shallow, looking for the lean black figure on its way home. It wasn't there. He found his grip iron-tight on the neck of the whiskey bottle. It had been hours now. Had Snape gone? Was he in trouble? Did he need help?

Somewhere out over the black landscape, there came the resounding boom of a bell. Midnight.

It was too late now.

Harry's mind was numb, taken over by the steady pulse of fear that bristled at the inside of his veins. He barely knew himself anymore. One moment he was standing at the door of the Shrieking Shack, sweat forming on his lower back despite the bitter night's grip. The next, he found himself hurrying between shadows cast by shop fronts, bottle in hand, air nipping at his bare chest and arms.

"Professor?"

Someone would hear him. Someone would hear his voice and come out from a nearby pub or house or shop, want to shake his hand, get his autograph, photographs for the paper,  _hey Harry, I heard you were somewhere in the country recovering? What are you doing here? Who gave you the burns, Harry? Where's your shirt? Why are you here, Harry?_

"Professor?  _Professor?_ "

Snape could be anywhere. He could have just stopped somewhere for a drink, wanting to drown his sorrows. Or passed out in the middle of the road. Murdered by some golden-hearted shopkeeper.

What if he wasn't even in Hogsmeade anymore? He could be sitting in a cell in the Ministry prisons. What if he'd tried to  _apparate?_ He could be halfway across the world, lying somewhere half-dead, growing colder and colder with every passing hour, no-one to gather him and warm him up.

"Severus?"

There was no reply. Harry had forgotten the cloak, his shoes, even the Regeneration Potion. He couldn't go back now. Snape could be lying on the pavement just down the next street, the next, in this doorway, in that one. He couldn't go back.

" _Severus?_ "

Somebody could have found him, passed out. Carried him home to a warm blanket and soup, and a Healer would come first thing in the morning. Then suddenly taking a second look.  _Hey, isn't this...? Didn't he murder...?_

Harry found himself on his knees in the middle of the village square, staring round at the mute, unwelcome face of every shop. They knew where he was. They knew, they knew. The skin around his eyes was turning raw as the cold chapped at his frustrated tears.

" _Severus!_ " he howled. He fisted his fingers in his hair. He'd lost him. Saved him and lost him.

He knew this would happen. He should have stopped it, should have done something, should have gone himself.

" _Severus_..."

And all over again, he caught the flash of black eyes in the back of his memory. He saw them die. Except this time, there was Snape's voice in his ears as the light went out.  _You should have been in my house, Potter. You would have made an excellent Slytherin._

"A man you say, Mum?"

"Yes... yes, in the alley beside my house. I do so hate to trouble you at this time of night, darling, but he seems to have been there for hours – "

"It's alright, don't fret about it. You can't be too careful these days. I'll come and move him on for you."

Harry looked up through tufts of his hair.

A little old woman in a cardigan and a flowery night-gown was doddering into the square, followed by a man who was apparently her son. He hesitated. They hadn't seen him.

"He... he's in the robes, Lars. Those terrible robes. Long and black. I - ... I don't know if he's...  _one of them_."

"In your alley, Mum?"

"Heaven knows how he got there... I just opened the door to let Tibbles out, a-and there he was, passed out..."

"Probably just a tramp, you know."

"Well yes, but... just here, see, there he is. There he is Lars. Didn't I tell you?"

Harry drew his wand. He pointed it at the man's back, and against his guilty conscience breathed, " _Imperio._ "

He saw the man stiffen just slightly. His elderly mother turned, tugging on his arm.

"What do you think, Lars?" she said. "Should we call the Ministry?"

"No," the man said, quietly. "No, I don't think so. Just some drunk. We'll leave him. If he's here in the morning, we'll call them."

"But – "

"Come on, Mum. Let's get you inside."

"But Lars, the man!"

"No. He's not a problem." Lars took his mother by the arm, steering her in through her front door as she stammered. "Let's put one of your soap operas on, shall we?"

The front door closed. There was the glint of a locking charm around the edges. Harry scrabbled to his feet and hurried for the alley, the breath coming cold in his lungs.

And there he was.

Slumped across the icy ground, deathly-pale, was Severus. He'd had the sense to lurch into an alley before he collapsed, Harry realised. There was a bag of shopping scattered across the ground beside him.

Harry knelt.

He checked for a pulse, whispering his relief to the faint beating of life that he found there. Severus was freezing. He wasn't the only one. Harry's teeth chattered as he pulled the man up off the ground, loose as a puppet, pulled him against his bare chest. Severus slumped. He buried his fingers in the other wizard's hair just to feel him a bit closer, reassure himself that it would be alright.

" _Accio Blood Regeneration Potion,_ " he mumbled, squeezed his wand.

It didn't come. He tried again, louder, and then for his invisibility cloak. Neither appeared, though he waited for quite some time. It was too far. He screwed up his energy, pointing his wand in the direction of the house on the hill.

" _Accio Blood Regeneration Potion!_ "

Nothing. He was too cold and too relieved at finding Snape to care. He'd just have to keep the man warm until they could get back to the house on their own strength.

Dragging him across the ground, he propped Snape up against the wall of the alley. They were less likely to be seen here, obscured behind a stack of old cardboard boxes. His fingers were shaking with the cold as he buttoned Snape's coat to his chin, determined that he would stay warm.

"P... Potter - ..."

His eyes snapped to Snape's face. Weak, half-conscious onyx looked back at him from half-closed lids, wrought with confusion, pain.

"It's okay," he said. He could think of nothing else. "It's okay, I'm here. I've got you."

He took the fire-whiskey bottle and crawled closer, kneeling astride Snape's thighs.

"Here, drink. It'll keep you warm."

He unscrewed the cap, fumbling, and held the neck to Snape's lips. He watched with burning satisfaction as the other wizard drank.

"It's okay," he said again. "I won't go. I won't leave you."

Snape turned his mouth against the fire-whiskey. With a pang, Harry recalled how he'd held Snape this way before.

"You'll freeze – " Snape shuddered as the whiskey began to take effect; he seemed unable to focus, barely able to think, but was struggling with some internal conflict. "Foolish boy, you - "

Harry tipped back his head to the bottle. For the first time he didn't fight the burn, shy away from it, but drank until it seemed to scorch him to the skin from the inside out. Beautiful warmth roasted him in waves. His head fell forward onto Snape's shoulder, breath raging. He felt as if he could whisper in flames.

"Leave me." The voice was quiet in his ear, impossibly weak. "You will freeze."

"Fuck you," Harry breathed. He curled closer to Snape's chest. "Leave you, go screw yourself. I left you before. I won't leave you again." All the same, the cold snapped at his back and shoulders, even as the whiskey thawed him through. His teeth were clattering. "I won't leave you," he seethed.

"Take – take my coat..."

Harry's first thought was a flat no. He would sooner leave than steal Snape's warmth. Then his wand seemed to twitch in his hand – he could enlarge the coat. Hermione's jar of bluebell flames was beyond him, and he wouldn't risk starting a real fire, but at least there could be coat for two.

Fingers stiff with the cold, he began to snap open Snape's buttons. Snape was clinging to consciousness. The line of his torso rose and fell quickly, deeply, as Harry scrambled over each fastening and pushed the material open, off his shoulders. The robes beneath were shredded enough to be useless. Tugging the coat free, he chattered the enchantment and felt the material began to stretch and ripple in his hands, spreading like woven water.

He pushed close to Snape and their chests heaved together slowly, both overcome with exhaustion.

He threw the coat around them, wrapped it like a blanket, fussed and checked and tucked until not an inch of Snape between knee and neck was vulnerable to the air. They shuddered as one. He felt Snape swallow, put an arm about his bare back, craving his body heat. He would find very little.

"You're cold as stone – " the older wizard managed. His fingers were little more than a whisper on Harry's back, numb and clutching.

Harry uncapped the whiskey beneath the blanket. "Drink," he said, and cradled the back of Snape's head, held him as he drank.

* * *

 

It was hours before Snape had the strength to move. Harry didn't want to disturb him and weaken him further, but any more time out in the cold could be disastrous for both of them. Even though it was June, the lingering effect of the Dementors was still present in the climate. It wasn't a night Harry wanted to be out in – and it wouldn't be long before the shopkeepers of Hogsmeade would be out, getting ready for the day. They couldn't risk being around to see it.

The retreat to the house was without dignity or grace. They stumbled together, fingers clutching at each other's numb flesh, staggering as one ungainly creature with too many limbs. They nearly crawled up the staircase.

Rigid with cold and exhaustion, Harry managed to negotiate Snape into the bed. The wizard was drifting in and out of consciousness. Spasms wracked his limbs every few moments.

Harry retrieved the Blood Regeneration Potion. He leant over Snape, cuddled him like an injured animal as he spooned the mixture gently between the bloodless lips. The burn of colour that flared up in Snape's cheeks only seemed to weaken him further – but he would be alright. Harry knew it as some other instinct. He wiped Snape's mouth, ignoring the man's weak mumbles, and laid him against the pillows. His fingers were stroking Snape's hair back from his forehead.

"Sleep," he urged. Snape's fingers were tight on his wrist, one on his shoulder, though the man was nearly unconscious. "Sleep... you'll be okay. You'll be okay."

Snape was reaching for him. He recognised the motions with a tight, hot sensation around his heart and before he knew what he was doing, he had crept beneath the covers.

His arms went around Snape slowly, wrapped.

They burrowed together, bare-chested, freezing. Without moving their limbs somehow came to entwine, arms and legs knotted around each other, and his head ended up beneath Snape's chin.

Sleep lapped at the edges of his mind.

His last conscious sensation was the steady beat of Snape's heart against his own, and the weakened fingers petting the curve of his back.

Late afternoon had turned the sky to pale blue and cream when Harry awoke. As consciousness teased around his brain, he became aware of the warm weight curled around him and nestled into it, sleepily. His blind fingertips sought across the planes of a smooth chest. Not even sure what he was looking for, he found it – a beat beneath his fingers, steady, life, Severus.

Reality focused - too sudden, too sharp.

His eyes opened and he drew back, carefully, feeling his own heart pounding in response to what he'd felt. For quite some time he simply sat, staring down at Severus as he slept. Black hair sleep-tousled, pale skin across once-snowy pillows.

He looked so  _comfortable_. Harry had felt this sensation before in only one place – returning to the dormitory late at night, aching a from gruelling Quidditch practice, then laying eyes on his bed.

It was an overwhelming urge to lie down and nest, stretch out, feel, sleep. His heart was still thumping in his chest. He laid a hand just to feel it, still staring at Snape. He wanted to get close, more than anything. He wanted to lie down and slip back into the man's arms, pretend he had never woken. Snape's lips were thin, curved, ever so slightly open.

He tore his eyes away and reached for the bag they'd struggled home with.

Inside were several t-shirts and shirts, mostly black and green. He picked one of the charcoal-coloured shirts and pulled it on. It was too big – he should have given Snape his size. It didn't matter – it was clothing all the same. Leaving the shirt open at the chest, he made his way downstairs and began to look for food.

They didn't have much to choose from. In the end, he settled for cereal and poured out two bowls, eating his own as he waited for the teapot to boil. When it was done, he made a large mug of tea. He took an old tray from the side, placed the mug and the other bowl of cereal upon it, and went back upstairs.

Snape was still asleep. He put the tray by the bedside. For several moments, he stood and looked down at the man he'd shared his bed with.

Again, his heart began to pound. He closed his eyes tight against the damning realisation that he wanted, more than anything, to get back in bed and feel Snape against him. He almost wanted to be back out in the cold, downing fire-whiskey, half-naked together under a coat.

"Potter?"

He looked up. Snape was just awake, one eye open, his voice husked with sleep.

"Sorry," Harry said, the colour rising in his face. He bit his lip. "I didn't mean to wake you... go back to sleep."

"Why – " Snape winced suddenly, then fought down the stab of pain, struggling to speak. "Why are you wearing my shirt?"

"Oh, it's... I didn't realise – " He reached up, shrugging the fabric off one shoulder.

"No," Snape said.

He paused, startled. He looked up into Snape's eyes. Snape seemed quite as shocked as Harry. For a few seconds they simply stared at each other, before Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed. He removed the shirt properly.

As he pulled on one of the t-shirts, facing the window, he could feel Snape's eyes on the curve of his back. Their weight was as real as Snape's fingertips had been.

"I... made you tea," he said, anxiously, desperate for something to say.

"Thank you."

There was silence.

"I'll go and tidy up downstairs, I think... if you need anything – " Snape wouldn't shout. Harry knew by now. However much he needed Harry's help, Snape would not ask and would not beg. "I'll come check in half an hour, either way."

He left the room. When he returned in half an hour, Snape was asleep once more. Harry sat on the edge of the bed and kept watch.


	8. Human Nature

Snape was a prolific reader - something Harry had only discovered over the last few days.

Drained by his night in the alley, weakened beyond any extensive physical movement, Snape was confined to the double bed upstairs and placed in the care of Harry. Most of the day he slept, pale and weary against the pillows, only rousing in the evening when Harry brought food. They would sit and eat in companionable silence. Then, Snape would ask for one of the aged books from the shelf in the corner. Harry would select one, bring it over and watch with fascination as the onyx eyes devoured it page-by-page.

Whenever Snape was reading, a great ease came over his face. He relaxed into the most powerful state of calm, one that Harry had never seen when Snape was pouring over textbooks in a dank, smoky classroom.

He never smiled. He hardly seemed to react at all – only the occasional stir of his body, a flare in his eyes, a silent sigh. As he read, and quite unconsciously, he stroked the edge of the page with his thumb. Sometimes he played the next corner between index and middle finger, or when he shifted onto his back to ease his pains, he ran his fingers along his temples and the line of his hair. His chest rose and fell, steady in his breathing. His eyes travelled each word, one-by-one, drinking them in.

Harry had fallen in love.

While Snape read, he usually sat in the armchair with the Daily Prophet or another book. Concentration was hard to come by. It was so easy, and so rewarding, to lose his evenings to watching Snape instead. The man was utterly unaware of his own powerful attractiveness, and it only made him more appealing.

A whole world of detail suddenly beckoned Harry's eye.

He was noticing bits of Snape that he'd never even registered the existence of, in over five years of sharing a classroom. He found beauty in the strangest places – the slope where Snape's neck met his shoulder, the little hollow between his collarbones, the curve of his jaw.

It made Harry wonder what other states revealed Snape in his more human forms. Maybe sex. If he was so utterly relaxed, like when he was reading. If his eyes took on the same soothed, faraway look. If his fingers caressed skin as they did a page.

Snape's fingers – deft, square-tipped, neat-nailed fingers. Lean fingers, but not so thin as to be impersonal or cold. Harry had expected potion stains or cuts or burns. There were none. Snape's hands were skilful and appreciated, the one part of his body that suggested his actual age, rather than his frown of sixty and his hundred-year-old eyes. At night, Harry laid awake looking at those hands, imagining them mapping out and tendering and nurturing a lover as thoroughly as a potion.

He wanted to sit in Snape's lap as he sat dozing throughout the day, and trace the dips in his face, study the line of his nose, find out if his eyes were closer to brown or blue.

He wanted to run his hands over the broad shoulders beneath the shirt, down the chest he'd only glimpsed, over the smooth stomach with its smattering of fine hair. He wanted the arms around him and the thin mouth dipping below his chin, nipping at his neck and his ear. He wanted to see himself stretched out nude at Snape's side, to consider the contrast of their skin.

He'd never expected to feel attraction to another man. He'd never considered his own sexuality at all – it had been taken as standard. He was straight.

There had been a gay couple in the year above, in Ravenclaw. He'd seen them walking hand-in-hand to Hogsmeade, sitting late in the library pouring over books together, kissing in the snow-swept courtyard one Christmas. Nobody else had ever really noticed them.

At first Harry had worried, thinking he was having bizarre hallucinations about gay couples.

Then he saw Ron in the corridor one day, talking to David while Aulius leant on his boyfriend's shoulder and played with his fingers. Ron had been completely unfazed by this, which was strange. Harry had expected Ron of all people to find it weird. He remembered asking Hermione about it.

"Apparently there's no wizarding concept of 'gay' or 'straight'," she'd said, with apparent interest. "Of course, you can see why... the magical community hasn't been subject to the same religious context as muggles. It just isn't a concept. Of course there's  _attraction_  to different genders, but the social implications aren't the same. I have to say it's refreshing."

She took on a faraway look.

"David and Aulius really are quite... adorable," she said with a little smile.

Harry hadn't mentioned it again.

All the same, whenever he passed the couple in the corridor, his eyes flittered towards them for a second longer than he knew he should. It had always intrigued him – in a gossip sort of way, he'd assumed. It was unusual. Anybody would be curious.

One time on his way to Quidditch practice, he spotted them kissing vociferously behind the stands, hands buried in each other's hair. In the few seconds he stood rigid to the spot with shock, he saw the taller of the two grind gently against his boyfriend, caught the faint answering moan of enjoyment.

Hermione was right. They really were quite... adorable.

* * *

The seventh day dawned in periwinkle and lemon. Harry stood by the open window in the bedroom, still damp from his morning bath. As he nursed a cooling cup of tea, he looking out over the landscape and tried to work out what his alternative self was doing today.

Today, the Daily Prophet's front page would call for Harry to be awarded the Order of Merlin. It was two days until Teddy Lupin was brought round and handed to him like some kind of war souvenir. In another two, he would beg Hermione for help. In six days from now, he disappeared. It didn't seem a particularly long time anymore.

He lifted the tea to his lips, closing his eyes. From behind him came the faint stir of the blankets.

He looked round, heart lifting as he saw the black eyes watching him from the muss of pillows. He found himself smiling. "Morning."

Snape said nothing, pulling the blankets wearily up over his head. "Bring tea will you, Potter..."

Harry brought tea and placed it on the bedside cabinet. Snape emerged from under the covers. He managed to sit up, face tight with pain, and lifted the tea to his lips as Harry watched. As always, he gave no outward sign of gratitude – but there was relief in his eyes. It was the most honest thanks Harry could have wished for.

"Do you know any sealing charms, Potter?"

"I think so... why?"

"It may be worth your time and energy to patch gaps in the ceiling today." Snape's eyes cast towards the window. "A storm is coming."

"A storm?" Harry felt the word ripple through him like a version of itself in miniature. "What – when? How do you know?"

"Can you not feel it on the air, boy? It could be here by sundown at the earliest. Look at the clouds."

Harry looked out over the sunrise. "I'll try and... get things fixed." He suddenly wasn't in the mood for his tea any longer. "Except... this house is old."

"Your point?"

"This house is  _really_  old. It's... I mean, you see how easily the front door comes off. We managed to blast straight through the roof with a stunning spell. Yesterday my foot went through the staircase when I tripped."

Snape seemed to be following Harry's train of thought. He exhaled, slowly, eyes on the window. "Then it may be a troublesome night."

"How bad will this storm be?"

"I can't tell. I doubt there will be any major structural damage inflicted. The place has withstood storms until now."

"Yes, but it's not had people duelling inside it and shooting holes in the roof until now."

"Point taken. It may be prudent to have an escape house selected, then. The Hog's Head should offer accommodation."

Harry bit his lip. "I'm... sort of on the front page of the paper today."

Snape's eyebrow arched. Harry went on, embarrassed.

"They want to give me the Order of Merlin. So everybody's going to recognise me and want to talk to me... and Aberforth already knows me. We're not supposed to be seen."

"Then we may have to remain here. There are cellars?"

"Yeah, there's a big room with storage crates."

"We'll need to relocate there before the sun is setting." Snape sipped at his tea pensively. "You chose a poor nest to guard your eggs in, Potter."

"Sorry. I'll ask Lord Voldemort to murder you somewhere more wind-resistant next time."

Snape huffed with amusement, then suddenly frowned as if annoyed at his laughter. He sipped at his tea. "I  _was_  going to attempt a bath tonight." He eyed Harry's damp, tufted hair and his clean skin, in a way that made all kinds of interesting shivers pass down Harry's spine. "Never matter. No doubt Mother Nature intends to give me a good shower through the holes in the roof."

"You could always have a bath this morning," Harry said. "It might... purge more venom and stuff."

Snape eyed him suspiciously.

"Well," said Harry, feeling the colour rise in his cheeks. "It could. And... and you could do with a bath, really. Not that I'm saying you smell. Just for general well-being and stuff."

"Hmm. Perhaps I will bathe then. Merlin forbid I antagonise the delicate nasal passages of the great Potter."

Harry opened his mouth, wanting to insist that he hadn't meant offence. Then he caught the wicked glimmer in the black eyes of the man before him, and realised. He grinned sheepishly.

"I didn't mean..."

"I'm well aware of it. I doubt you'd have the balls to make any significant slur on my body odour. Run the bath and an appropriate fraction of all will be forgiven. Not too deep. Warm, but not hot, if you please."

Harry did so, marvelling over Snape's easy agreement to a bath. It would be a lot less hazardous than the last wash, anyway. He spent quite some time checking the temperature, then went rooting through the nearby cupboards, eventually finding a stack of old towels. He cleaned them off carefully. The largest he folded and draped over the edge of the bath, knowing the aches that afflicted Snape's back.

By the time he was done, the room looked rather inviting past the grubbiness. Steam was rising in gentle plumes over the water, dawn filtering through the boarded windows, and a great sense of calm drifted amidst the warmth.

Hearing the door creak, Harry turned round. Snape was out of bed. Although he looked pained, he was on his feet and it was an improvement.

"You should have waited for me," Harry said, wishing he didn't sound quite so much like Mrs Weasley. He moved to Snape and slid under his arm, taking his weight, supporting him into the bathroom. "You'll injure yourself."

"Contrary to belief, Potter, I am not some crippled little orphan out of a Dickens novel. Stop clucking round me."

"Okay, look. You're ill. And maybe you'll only admit that in about a decade, but trust me, you are. I've fallen for  _'I'm fine Potter, there's nothing wrong Potter'_  enough times now to know that you're in fact  _not_  fine. So snipe at me all you want, I'm not going to let you injure yourself again."

"You'll be attending me in the bath then, will you?"

"I'll be outside the room in case you need me, yes. And I expect you to keep splashing so I know you're conscious."

Snape rolled his eyes. "I'll be disappointing you, in that case. I refuse to sit in a bath splashing away like a toddler. I'm a grown man, Potter. I'm thirty-seven."

"Only  _thirty_ -seven?" Harry teased, and received a sharp tug to the fine hair at the nape of his neck. "Ouch! What was that for?"

"Insolence. Now out."

"Are you okay with your clothes?"

"Out, Potter!"

Harry got out. He closed the door behind him, and settled on the floor with his back up against the peeling white paint, made himself comfortable. From inside the bathroom was silence for a few minutes, broken only by the occasional shift of clothing dropping to the tiles. Then, after a pause, there came an unmistakeable hiss of pain.

"What was that?" Harry said, and the answer came through gritted teeth.

"Nothing, brat! Stay where you are."

"You hurt yourself. I heard it. Are you alright?"

"Yes!  _Yes_ , for heaven's sake, Potter, stay where you are!" Snape sounded as if he was panting with pain. "If you dare – "

Harry found himself on his feet, hands pressed anxiously to the door. "Listen – if you're in pain, I don't care, we've got the same anatomy. Basically." His heart was beating hard. "Seriously. Please, please don't be in pain. We've got a pact."

There was no answer.

"Snape?"

He'd fainted. Harry burst into the bathroom without a second thought and found Snape where he'd expected - slumped on the tiles against the bath, bloodless in the face. He had one of the towels draped around him loosely. Harry knelt and wrapped his arms around Snape's unconscious form, gathering him up into a sitting position. The thought that the man was naked barely crossed his mind.

"Idiot," he whispered. "Idiot... stubborn idiot...  _accio towel_."

One of the towels leapt up from the top of the pile and flew over. Harry caught it, tucking it around Snape carefully to protect his modesty. He spelled it to stay in place.

" _Accio Regeneration Potion._ " After a moment, the jug clunked its way noisily through the doorway and zoomed into Harry's hand. He unscrewed it. The teaspoon was already waiting in the jar. Gently he spooned some of the potion out, tipped back Snape's head and placed it between his lips, rubbing his throat to get him to swallow.

A half-conscious Snape was a wonderful thing, Harry decided. He became pliable and unaware, and barely stirred as Harry negotiated his weak form carefully into the bath. He left the towels around Snape's waist.

As Harry cupped water in his palms, trickling it over Snape's blazing cheeks, he saw the older wizard begin to rouse. Snape stirred, lips parting. A frown then furrowed his brow.

"Ha-..." he whispered. "Har-..."

"I'm here." Harry's spirit soared.  _Harry. He called me Harry. He said my name._ "I'm here, it's okay." He brushed back Snape's hair with shaking fingertips, barely aware of how wet he'd gotten in moving Snape to the bath. "You should have said... you know pain triggers the fainting..."

Snape said nothing. He turned his head into Harry's hands, mutely, eyes closed. A pang went through Harry's chest.

He cradled the older wizard's face for quite some time, stroking wet thumbs over his cheeks, pacifying the scarlet patches. Silence fell between them. He observed, with some trepidation, the steady growth in Snape's consciousness. Snape wasn't jinxing him or swearing just yet. He took a cloth from the side, dipping it in the water and washing Snape's shoulders.

He felt the muscles tense under his hands. He hesitated – then, Snape's shoulders seemed to ease. They unwound ever so slightly, the tiniest step forwards. Harry bit his lip and resumed his washing, going slowly, following the rules of the unspoken agreement. Snape's eyes did not open.

"You – you tell  _no-one_ ," came the older wizard's strained whisper, some minutes in.

"There's nothing to tell," Harry said, confused. He saw Snape shudder with discomfort and his chest tightened in sympathy, rising onto his knees to brush back the man's hair. "Shhh, it's... it's alright," he tried. Snape was tensing. "Don't be worried."

"You have no  _idea_  – "

"Okay. Right, here goes." Harry dropped the cloth.

He stood up, so suddenly that Snape's eyes opened in alarm. Before the man could say anything, he tugged his t-shirt off over his head and snapped open the buttons of his jeans. Along with his boxers, he shoved them down and kicked them away. He even removed his glasses and tossed them onto the pile of his clothes.

Recklessly naked, he knelt down at the side of the tub once more. Snape was doing an uncanny impression of a house-elf.

"There." Daring pounded through Harry like a second heartbeat. "You're naked, I'm naked. I'm actually  _more_  naked than you, and I'm scrawny, so you've got nothing to worry about. Now shut up and let me wash you."

He looked into the startled black eyes, praying this didn't go wrong. The realisation that he was actually naked was beginning to catch up with him. He fought his instinct to go red and run away, staring into Snape's eyes, pleading silently.  _Please don't let me down._

"You – "

Snape slackened his grip on the sides of the bath.

"You are  _bizarre_ ," he finished. He was looking at Harry as if he'd suddenly seen far, far more than just his body. It was the most flabbergasted expression Harry had ever seen. "What – what on  _Earth_  does this accomplish, what possible progression could be gained from – now we're both...  _nude_?"

It was that single word,  _nude_ , and the truly appalled way in which it was enunciated, that set Harry off.

He snorted with laughter, unable to stop himself, and reached up to try and muffle the sound. His embarrassment only caused him to splutter, and then he was laughing, the blush finally breaking out over his cheeks. He clutched the side of the bath as he giggled, trying to stop, desperately embarrassed as he shook with laughter.

It was only looking back, years later, that Harry would realise something important.

Snape was laughing too.

When he finally came up for oxygen, Harry was red to the roots of his hair. He gave an apologetic glance to Snape, grinning shyly. Snape was watching him with a truly fascinated expression.

"I'm sorry... I don't know why I just - ... whipped my clothes off. I just don't want you to be uncomfortable. You shouldn't have to be."

He had never felt so honest, so open, in all his life – even with Ron and Hermione, even with  _Ginny_.

"I mean, it's just us here... and it's just human. And I know that maybe you don't want people to see you as human. But – " He smiled. "Listen, I saved your life and I  _know_  you're human. I know you're human because I  _kept_  you human. I don't want you to feel awkward."

He pressed his cheek to the smooth, curved edge of the bath, looking at Snape tilted.

"I'm not going to tell," he said softly. He smiled. "I'll take an Unbreakable Vow, if you want. I won't tell. This is... it's too good to share."

* * *

The boy was saying something to him – he didn't particularly register the words. Snatches here and there.  _Whipped my clothes off. It's just human. I kept you human. Unbreakable Vow. Too good to share._ It didn't matter, any of it.

Not when the boy laughed like that.

He'd never seen someone laugh that way – he knew they did. He knew it was possible. Suddenly he was fifteen years old again, and looking across the grounds, seeing a group of Hufflepuffs by the lake, watching them jealously as they howled with laughter and rolled together in the grass, a great pile of mirth and friendship, like puppies.

Nobody had laughed that way in front of him. He'd never heard someone snort and splutter, and then just break down into giggles for no reason.

The boy's eyes seemed to have lit up. They sparkled with the most pure, heart-breaking emerald green, his pupils all dilated, cheeks flushed with laughter and life. When the glasses were gone, Harry Potter was his mother. The curve of her face shone through, the slight button of her nose, the simple  _joy_  that was each moment Lily Potter lived and Severus got to share.

Harry was speaking to him still, telling him things, talking with the openness of his mother. For almost the first time, Harry's pretty face was freed from James's bitter arrogance. It simply wasn't there. No trace, no ghost, no whisper.

He couldn't look away.

Even as the boy picked up the cloth again, soaked it in the water, leant forward to rub at his aching shoulders, he couldn't look away from those eyes.

_Look at me_ , he whispered silently – only it can't have been silent, must have been spoken, as next moment Harry looked at him, blinking owlishly. So obedient. Such green eyes. All bare, smooth shoulders and milky skin, and those eyes.

Then the boy blushed, eyes shimmering, and looked away. He kept soaking Severus's shoulders as if nobody had seen, but Severus had.

He'd seen that look in those eyes once before – except then, it was reserved for James Potter. Kept special. Cherished, locked away like a secret, and she'd tried to hide it from Severus. He'd seen, though. He'd always seen. She'd always loved James Potter. He'd never tried to fool himself that Lily Potter bore any flame for him, for Severus, in her heart.

Yet here was that look, all over again – a new heart, a new mind, a new soul, The Boy Who Laughed.

And just for him.


	9. The Storm

The rain began to fall at half past five. Harry dragged his own nest, which had recently gone un-slept in, down to the basement and sealed the gaps in the floorboards overhead. He brought a lamp down from the kitchen. The fire-whiskey would cheer them through the night, and a pack of playing cards he'd found in a drawer in the lounge. Darkness prickled at the horizon. Harry managed to finish making dinner and plated it up as the rain began to pour, and thunder wrenched at the sky.

He hurried upstairs to where Snape laid on the bed, eyeing Harry's sealing charms with considerable doubt.

"Late but nonetheless appreciated, Potter," the older wizard muttered as Harry helped him up from the bed. Since the bath, Snape seemed to be moving more easily, but not quite with his old grace yet. "Have you sealed the cellar?"

"Yeah, just a few gaps in the ceiling. The room above as well. We'll be fine." Harry shifted to go first down the stairs, ready to catch Snape if he blacked out. "I found some cards, too... we can do exploding snap, except we'll have to make our own explosions. They're muggle cards."

"Oh. Joy."

Harry grinned, glancing at Snape. "We've got more fire-whiskey. It'll be joy, one way or another." He reached out to help the other wizard down the last few steps. Snape gripped his fingers tightly.

As they settled for the night beneath the floorboards, the storm began to rumble more fiercely overhead. Harry could hear the front door snapping gently each time the wind tugged at it. If there was a Shrieking Shack left by dawn, he'd be amazed. He picked up Snape's meal from one of the crates, and carried it to the other wizard where he sat in their nest. He caught the momentary flash of appreciation in Snape's face.

"What is it?"

He took a knife and fork from his pocket. "Chicken and sauce. I don't know what kind, so you'd better not ask."

"Honey and mustard, I think. It's good to know you're confident of what you're feeding me." Snape pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing just slightly, and took the knife and fork. "Where did you find the sauce?"

"Hogsmeade." He'd gone down earlier under the invisibility cloak, bringing back food supplies and whiskey. "Is it okay?"

"I can't see any instantly noticeable flaws."

That was a 'yes'. Harry smiled and sat down beside him, pulling his own plate onto his lap. "Good. I've probably cooked more this week than I have in my life."

"You're shaping up to be a rather special little house-elf, Potter."

"Shut up, I'm not your house-elf." Harry was grinning all the same, forking himself a piece of chicken and dabbing it in the sauce. "Hermione would be knocking at your door and demanding my freedom, if I was."

"Does Granger know you're currently flaunting every magical law of chronology ever set down?"

"It's her Time-Turner... I had to tell her. She wasn't happy. But she let me go in the end. She knew I wasn't sleeping."

"You... weren't sleeping?"

Realising he'd just admitted far more than he ought to, Harry frowned a little. "You try watching somebody die over and over for eleven days, then sleep soundly."

"Potter, may I ask a question?"

"You've not asked my permission before."

"Quite. Tell me... others died, didn't they? In the final battle?"

Harry stabbed another piece of chicken. "I know what you're going to ask," he said. He realised that he was coming to understand Snape far more than he'd once have wanted to. "And... and I guess I just don't know. You stuck out in my mind. It wasn't right."

"Gryffindor honour and justice."

"Maybe..." Harry mumbled. He swirled his piece of chicken around in the sauce. "Either way, I don't really know why. Everybody else died for some cause. You didn't."

There was silence for a while. Then Harry put down his fork with a click.

"Why didn't he just hand you the bloody thing then  _disarm_  you? That would have worked as well."

"The same reason that, in your fourth year, he didn't simply turn your toothbrush into a portkey, and instead went to the ludicrous and risky troubles he did."

"I... I don't get it."

Snape put his fork down, the better to explain. "The Dark Lord operates in an 'extreme' manner, Potter. His final goal was absolute conquer. In that way, it becomes easier to see why his methods were quite so absolute. He operated under his own standards of 'defeat'. In your case, it was capturing you in a moment when you were about to achieve glory. He wished to drag you from such a height. That way, in his mind, his defeat of you was absolute. None could accuse him of taking you while you were vulnerable, of being an inferior wizard."

"And... and so for you, he didn't just want to do it the easy way. He had to make it impressive."

"Precisely." Snape picked up his fork, cutting off a piece of chicken with the edge. He gestured with it as he spoke. Harry tried not to find it too funny. "He wished to become the absolute master of the Elder Wand. He wanted no technicalities, no loopholes, no possible accusation that he was not justified in his greatness."

Harry listened, sinking into thought. He'd never heard Snape, or in fact anyone, talk so openly about Voldemort. Snape had  _known_  the man in a way very few others did. It was strange to hear him speak so casually about it, as if the Dark Lord was an after-dinner topic of conversation he was well-versed in. It made something click in his head.

"You know he's gone, don't you? Gone for good?"

Snape finished chewing, swallowed, and reached for the sleeve of his shirt. He pulled the fabric back. Harry's chest tightened, expecting to see the horrible black mark coiling and blistering at the skin.

Instead, there was only a scar – white, etched into the skin like the one on Harry's forehead. It was quite still, unmoving. He wondered why he hadn't noticed this in the bath, before realising he'd been too busy laughing to care about things like Voldemort. It was a wonderful thought that he, and Snape, could finally do that.

"Is there anyway to bring him back?" Harry asked, hesitantly.

Snape resumed eating. "Only some lunatic brat with a Time-Turner and a distinct lack of regard for regulations," he said, nonchalantly.

Harry grinned. "So no..."

"Effectively, no. The Dark Lord is vanquished once and for all." Snape's mouth twisted a little. "I will need to find myself a hobby. Gardening, perhaps."

"Flower-arranging."

"Mm, something like that. Crochet. Interior design. I could become a New Age traveller." Snape toyed with his fork, eyes lifting to the ceiling in thought. "Perhaps I should do hand-made greeting cards, sell them at muggle junk sales. That will keep me occupied well into my lonely twilight years."

"Do you think you'll go back to teaching?"

Snape snorted. "Even if I wished to, I doubt I could. My reputation is well and truly soiled."

He picked up another piece of chicken and eyed it, soberly.

"In all seriousness, Potter, I will most likely spend my days in hiding. I doubt the wizarding world will forgive me."

"But there's the pensive. All the memories are still there. You can show people. They'll see." Harry watched him, pained. "I'll give evidence for you."

"After giving evidence  _against_  me?"

Harry hesitated. "Well... I thought you'd murdered him."

"I did."

"But he asked you to."

"Must we get into the euthanasia debate?" Snape, looking rather sour, stabbed another piece of chicken. "What has become of Lucius? Draco?"

"In the Prophet, it said the Malfoys have offered any and all help they can to restore the world. They met Kingsley Shacklebolt. I think Lucius has a lot of community service to do, but they've been forgiven..."

"I doubt the same will come for me, Potter. I shouldn't get your hopes up."

"But you're innocent!"

"Consider. The Dark Lord falls. I assume that within the hour, the Malfoys had renounced their old ways and prostrated themselves before the magical community for forgiveness. All Death Eaters, still alive after the battle, have fled into hiding. Amongst them disappears Severus Snape. Which side will people assume I am on, Potter?"

"I could tell them - ..."

At Snape's glowering look, Harry back-pedalled hastily.

"Okay, maybe I won't admit the whole thirteen days with a Time-Turner thing... but I know you're innocent."

He put his empty plate on top of the nearest crate and stood up.

"I went to all the trouble of getting you back. I'm not just going to let you drift away into hiding after this. I want you to  _live_ , properly."

From the low table by the door, he picked up the bottle of fire-whiskey and returned to their nest.

"You're not going into hiding. I'll have your name cleared. I killed Voldemort, they owe me a favour or two."

Snape was unconvinced, but did not argue further. Harry unscrewed the fire-whiskey and took the first drink, gulping down far more than he had on his first attempt.

"You're becoming quite the fire-whiskey enthusiast, I see," Snape commented.

Harry shivered as the fierce liquid burnt down into his stomach, then relinquished the bottle, wiping the top. He handed it over. "I've broken enough laws as it is... if I'm arrested for underage drinking, it won't be too bad."

Snape snorted. "You don't know the meaning of the word 'illegality'." He drank deeply, visibly shuddering at that first spread of heat. "Unforgivable Curses make me unforgivable, Potter."

"We're in the same boat, then."

"You haven't performed an Unforgivable Curse."

"I have," said Harry placidly. He took back the bottle. "Two of them... I've used Imperius about three times, maybe more. And Cruciatus on Amycus Carrow."

"I envy you for that. There are many curses I would like to have directed at Amycus Carrow."

"He was your deputy, wasn't he?"

"Does it mean I had to like him?"

"Well no, not really..." Harry rubbed his thumb over the neck of the fire-whiskey, taking a sip. "Why were you such a cruel headmaster?"

"The small matter of the Dark Lord watching my every move."

"Still, you could have gone easy on them, sometimes... you  _were_  on Dumbledore's side."

"Are you sure?"

Harry looked up and found the black eyes watching him, closely, his lips pressed to the neck of the fire-whiskey. He drank for a moment. Snape watched him.

"Is this the part where you reveal you're actually a Death Eater and murder me?"

Snape's eyes glimmered. "No." He looked away. "You  _are_  ignorant."

"I'm not ignorant. I came back in time to save your life, and I defeated the world's greatest dark wizard, how am I – "

"I did not say you were  _stupid_. I said you were  _ignorant_. That is, void of knowledge while still having intelligence."

"Just what knowledge am I void of?"

Snape said nothing. Now curious, Harry edged closer and sat up, put a hand on the other wizard's chest, looking down at him.

"What am I ignorant of?"

"Get off me, Potter," Snape said, but it was quiet, a half-hearted reprimand. Harry chose to ignore it.

"You asked if I was sure you were on Dumbledore's side. What's that supposed to mean? Of course you were. I saw all the memories. You were always on Dumbledore's side."

There was silence for a moment more, then Snape looked up. He tugged the whiskey bottle from Harry's grip.

"Dumbledore's side," he said, and without wiping the rim lifted the bottle to his lips, "and your side, are not necessarily one and the same."

He drank. Harry watched his throat muscles work. When Snape had put the bottle aside, Harry said, "So you were on my side. That's still Dumbledore's side."

"On your side, I am under no obligation to be pleasant to your little friends or make their school lives easier."

"Come on, torturing people? That's low."

"The Carrows tortured and got their hands dirty. I ran the school to the Dark Lord's instructions."

"You mean you never punished anyone? Nobody was ever sent to Headmaster Snape's office?"

"Oh, they were. I palmed them off onto the Carrows."

"What if I'd been there? Would you have dealt with me?"

There was silence. Snape frowned at him. "That question is preposterous. The second you showed your heroic little face at Hogwarts, the Dark Lord would have been summoned."

"What if he'd told you to kill me?"

"He wished that honour for himself."

"But what if he wanted to test your loyalty?"

"Then perhaps I would have failed the test, Potter. This conversation ends here." He snatched up the whiskey bottle. "Bring your damn muggle playing cards before I stun you for some peace and quiet."

Harry watched Snape drink for a moment or two, then got out of the nest and moved back to the table. He returned with the cards.

"What games do you know, Potter?" Snape said, and surrendered the fire-whiskey to Harry's insistent tug.

"Not many. Want to make a card castle?"

"Why yes, certainly. I do apologise. I'd momentarily forgotten that I am five years old."

"What games do you know then, old man?"

Snape thought as he shuffled through the cards. "Most involve a lot of money loss, drinking or stripping. Seeing as I have no money, we have one bottle of whiskey, and I've already seen you naked, none of them seem to have much point to them."

Harry blushed, but refused to be too embarrassed. He sat up slightly and drank again. "We could play Black Jack."

"We could... what?"

"Black Jack. Where you make twenty-one. Come on, I'll teach you."

They whiled away an hour over Black Jack and the fire-whiskey, until the bottle ran dry and Snape's patience was waning. Snape tried, unsuccessfully, to teach Harry the basics of wizarding poker before they gave up. For some time they laid in silence, listening to the storm, and Harry played Solitaire. Then, a thought came to him.

"I never played cards with your gargoyle."

"Excuse me?"

"The gargoyle outside your office. Grog. Whenever I went past he asked if I wanted to play cards, and I never had the time." Harry pushed the pack to one side. "He never spoke to me when I was at school."

Snape rolled his eyes. "It spoke to me plenty. Never shut up. Asking how many young boys I'd bent over my desk today." He stretched out a little, watching Harry with faint interest. "How did you come to be acquainted with my gargoyle?"

"I went to raid your books. I figured that if I was going to find information on snake venom anywhere, it would be – "

A memory suddenly struck him. He sat up.

"Your password!"

Snape searched his eyes warily. "My password was 'Dumbledore'. What point are you making?"

"No, to your private rooms!"

"I do not have private rooms," said Snape stiffly.

"Well, there were some rooms just below your office that were full of your stuff. I don't know what you count as private rooms, but they were to me. I asked the gargoyle to let me in and he said I needed the password, but he let me in anyway."

"I always fancied him a shoddy guardian."

"He  _told_ me."

Snape glowered up at him – the fire-whiskey had brought a tinge to his cheeks, darkened his eyes. "Told you  _what,_ precisely? Is this the new game we're playing? Antagonise Snape?"

"Drop the ignorant act. I know your password was me."

Snape paused. Harry looked down at him, seeing the resignation in his face.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

" _Why was I your password_?"

"I needed something that a student would find impossible to guess. Your little fan club had already attempted to break into my office, without success. It would only be a matter of time before they tried my rooms."

"You could have used anything. A string of random numbers. A weird plant name. Anything. Why me?"

"Drop it, will you!"

"No! Why should I? If you set your password as 'Potter' – "

He stopped. Something in Snape's eyes had flickered, then clamped up, as if wary of being seen. Harry realised.

"It wasn't. Was it? It wasn't 'Potter'. It was 'Harry'."

Snape swatted at him. Years of Quidditch finally paid off. Harry snatched at his hand before it hit him. He caught Snape's wrist, gripped it, stared fiercely into the black eyes.

"You want me," he breathed, shaking. The words came from him without thought. He saw the dark eyes flash, and gripped Snape's wrist tighter, pulling it to his cheek. He leant over the older wizard. "How long?"

Snape grimaced, shuddering. "We are  _not_  going to have this conversation," he hissed, even as Harry's body laid out atop his own, stretched, even as his fingers curled into the boy's hair. "Stop this."

"When I was at Hogwarts? When I was your student?" Harry pressed his forehead to Snape's, drinking the man's breath and its heavy scent of whiskey, seeing every wild flicker of fear in the black eyes. "Did you want me there, when you were Headmaster? When you had that power?"

"Get off me," Snape snarled, bearing his teeth. He arched, though whether to dislodge Harry or to rub against him wasn't clear. " _Off_. Now. You aren't in the right mind."

"I'm not drunk," Harry whispered. He buried his fingers in the blankets either side of Snape's head. "I know what I'm doing. I want you and you want me too."

" _Get – off – me_! You are  _seventeen_ , caged here, and have no  _idea_  – "

Harry shivered, tangling a hand in Snape's hair and leant down for his mouth.

They kissed, roughly; Snape's hisses quietened – then again, harder and deeper. For a third time, slower. Snape arched up against Harry and dragged him closer, and as their tongues curled in Harry's mouth, he felt the older man's fingertips slip beneath his t-shirt and pass over his lower back. He moaned and shivered as the cool, slim fingers sought higher. Snape was stroking the curve of his waist. They began to rock together, breath harsh now, fast, before Snape broke fiercely away.

Overhead, the furies of the storm seemed so very far away. They panted slowly into each other's mouths.

"I really do want you," Harry whispered after quite some time. He was surprised at the soft tones in his own voice, after such a furious kiss, and saw Snape's pupils swell with want. "Please," he whispered. He cupped the other wizard's face. "Please. Just... I – "

"Get these clothes off," Snape ordered in a breath, and Harry bit his lip on a moan. He sat up and struggled for the hem of his t-shirt. It came over his head, discarded to one side, leaving him shaking and bare. Snape rose onto his elbows.

The hot mouth latched onto Harry's neck, began to kiss and suck slowly, tickling over his skin up to his earlobe. Harry's eyes rolled with pleasure.

"Yes – "

Snape's fingertips, slightly chilled, began to roam over his back. The older wizard got a hand between them and twisted the fastening of his jeans. The catch snapped open.

"Good boy," came the murmur at his neck. He quivered as Snape pulled down his jeans. "For your records, I did."

"Did... did what?"

"Want you at Hogwarts when I was Headmaster." How could Snape sound so sexy? The voice trickled over his ears as liquid pleasure, interspersed with slow brushes of mouth and tongue over his shoulders, his neck, his ear, making him squirm. "In a very impersonal, fucking-you-roughly-over-my-desk way."

"Yes – "

"Mm... you should have come sooner..."

Snape was stroking his thighs and his hips now, rubbing the material of his underwear with a thumb.

"There's something romantic in it," Snape whispered. "Foolish boy... I would have kept your presence at the castle a secret. Protected you. Perhaps in return for a little payment."

As he said it, he slid Harry's shorts down over his hips. Harry blushed hotly. He buried his face in Snape's neck.

Harry's jeans and shorts came off over his ankles and were pushed aside, Snape's arms wrapping around him and tugging him closer. He fought his trembling. He had never felt quite so exposed. Even as Snape leant up, kissing around his mouth and coaxing him to kiss back, he felt nervous.

"You too," he mumbled. He reached for the buttons of the other wizard's shirt, fumbling with them. "Please."

Snape laid back as Harry undressed him. After the first few buttons, Harry's confidence began to build and his fingers no longer shook, until he was working Snape's shirt off his shoulders. They both sighed, skin-on-skin, pleasure rolling over Harry's flesh in waves. Snape began to kiss at his neck. He pulled the older wizard's trousers open and tugged them off, Snape's hips rocking slowly into him, then the shorts.

Both naked, they dissolved into kissing once more. Harry came to be on his back, pressed deep into their nest by twelve stone of restless Snape. Their kisses had become wet and clumsy, audible even over the pounding of rain above ground, and their fingers ran over each other's arms and chests. At last, Snape reached down between them.

Harry stiffened at the hand wrapping around him – he then moaned, eyes falling shut, a huff of raging excitement passing his lips. He stirred, gasping, "Please..."

Snape was relentless. He began to stroke, easy and steady, too loose, too gentle, and the look in his eye said he knew he was the first. Harry mumbled and blushed and shivered, relaxing only when the familiar mouth lifted to his neck and sucked.

After some time a hand caught his own, cajoled it into unclenching from the blankets.

"Slow," came the murmur just below his ear, as his hand was drawn down, wrapped around Snape's much larger cock. "Not too rough. My good boy..."

Harry obeyed. He bit his lip and began to stroke, unsure, just acquainting himself with the heavy pulse of Snape's cock in his hand.

As Harry began to learn, squeezing Snape gently, the hand around his own length began to speed up. He moaned and stiffened. Snape's eyes were devouring him, watching every twitch and sigh, and some tight knot of heat seemed to be coiling in his stomach.

"I – " He jerked. "I'm – "

Snape leant down, kissed him, pried open his lips with his tongue. With a loud cry, and a sweet rippling tension all over his body, Harry came.

White blanked out his vision and left him shaking, boneless, only dimly aware of his own cries. Pleasure like he'd never felt was scorching him.

As he came down, Snape was still kissing him, stroking him. The heavy cock was still hard in his hand. He moaned weakly and stirred, trying to rub Snape faster.

The man pulled back, hushed him. Then he crawled further up the nest to Harry. Harry knew what was coming and shuddered, eyes fixed on the glistening head of Snape's cock. Without prompt, he leant up and opened his mouth instinctively. He sucked Snape between his lips. A hand rested on the back of his head; a whispered, "Good boy."

He sucked clumsily for a few minutes, working by instinct, bobbing his head up and down. He found that if he flicked his tongue at the underside of his mouthful, Snape groaned faintly and so he kept doing it, eyes closed. Snape's hips began to rock into his mouth.

His only warning sign was a sudden tightening in Snape's fingers on the back of his head, trying to pull him off. He wrapped his arms around Snape's waist and sealed his lips around him, sucking harder.

A hoarse shout; bitter fluid, surprisingly hot, hit the back of his tongue. He gagged and fought to swallow, but there seemed to be too much. Wetness dripped down his chin. He drew back and licked, gently, his eyes still closed. Snape was shaking above him.

"Enough," came the quiet urge after a moment or two. He stopped his licking and looked up. Snape was watching him.

There was a strange look in his eye, one that Harry knew instantly he did not like. It was pained. Guilty, even. Pitying.

Wanting to get rid of that look, he sat up a little and kissed at Snape's belly, wriggling from underneath him. He knelt up in the nest. He put his arms around Snape, kissed at his jaw. Snape was peculiarly stiff.

"This – " Snape tried to draw away. "Off me. Off."

Harry, surprised, let go. Snape moved back to a safe distance. They looked at each other, guilty black on shocked green, and Harry quivered with anxiety.

"What... what's wrong?"

"This was a mistake."

The comment sank into Harry's chest like a blade.

His eyes widened. "But – but we – " He wanted to lie down with Snape, kiss him, feel his hands. His body longed to rest and bond in its after-glow, but the warmth was quickly going stale. He found himself shaking. "How can you – "

"Potter, you... you should have stopped me."

"I didn't want you to stop!"

"Then I should have stopped myself." Snape's voice was hard. He reached for his clothes. "My God... I have more  _control_  than to – "

Harry didn't know what to say. He didn't understand. Emotion was rolling up in him, eyes beginning to prickle.

"I thought you liked it," he whispered. "I... I  _liked_  it. Please."

"Of course you would."

Snape was standing up, trying to pull on his shorts and trousers. Pain panged through Harry as he saw the hints of struggle. Their exertions had done Snape's muscles little good.

"Let – let me help, you should lie down – "

He stood, touching Snape's back hesitantly. Snape lashed at him.

"Get off me!  _Off, Potter!_ "

The savagery in the voice hit Harry as hard as if it were a real strike. He stumbled back. Eyes wide, tears burning his cheeks, he gasped out. "What's  _wrong_  with you? We just – "

" _No_. We nothing, Potter."

Harry choked. "That was – " He wanted to scream. "That was the first time I've  _ever_ – "

Snape turned. The movement was so sudden that Harry wouldn't have thought him capable of it, and before Harry could do anything, Snape had advanced. He gripped Harry by the shoulders, hard. His face came right up close.

"This did not happen," Snape breathed. His voice was void of rage – just cold, hard. Indifferent. It stung deeper than any anger could have. "You will not mention this to me. You will not think about this in my presence. And let your heart bleed however much it wants to, but no-one will know of this. Do you understand me?"

Harry could not think. He could barely breathe. He tried to imagine this man as the one that had just kissed his neck, stroked his belly gently as he came. He couldn't.

" _Do you understand me_ _?!_ "

" _Yes_!" he howled. Snape let him go. He slumped, suddenly aware of how naked he was, Snape's completion still flecked on his chin. His tears poured harder than ever – but now, they came silently.

"Get your clothes on," Snape whispered.

_Good boy._ The words echoed in Harry's head as he dressed, fumbling over his clothes, feeling filthy. Snape was sitting across the room now. He looked as numb as Harry felt. There was a deadened look in his eyes. Harry didn't dare go to him, didn't dare speak. _Good boy._

Within fifteen minutes Snape had taken the nest. He did not look at or address Harry whatsoever as he bedded down, shoving Harry's pillow away from him. How he could sleep, Harry didn't know – all the same, he could. And with apparent ease.

Harry watched the man's silent face for a few minutes, empty. Then he took his pillow from where it had fallen on the cold ground. He carried it out of their shelter, along the uneven black corridor, to the staircase leading up to the kitchen.

There he sat with his arms around his pillow, and let the tears course silently down his face.

He wished he could get rid of the feeling of cold between his legs, but he couldn't. There was a mark everywhere Snape had kissed, touched. All over his neck, at his ears, round his back, in his mouth, daubed like black venom.

He wished he could feel some kind of anger. The truth was that he couldn't. All he knew was confusion, and shame, and how lonely were the sounds of the dying storm.

He wished Hermione was here.

She understood these things. She'd be able to look at Snape, or the stains he'd left on Harry, and say what Harry had done wrong. Somehow, through female intuition or brains or something else, she would just  _know_. He tried to think of her voice, what she'd say, but couldn't even remember what she sounded like.

Harry didn't sleep that night. He sat all night on the stairs, holding his pillow, wondering if sex always hurt this much.

* * *

Severus didn't sleep that night either.

Upon Harry's exit, he could open his eyes at last. He laid and tried to forget the boy's gentle smell on all the blankets, the sheets, over his hands. He tried to wish the night away, as if he had some Time-Turner in his head that would work and repair his hateful crimes if only he tried hard enough. He tried to ignore the voice in his head.  _I want you. Please._

_You don't_ , he thought.  _No, you don't._


	10. Alcander's Syndrome

For four days now, Harry had ceased to exist.

He haunted the shack with silent footsteps, grey-faced and unknowing, feeling too defiled to remember what normality was like. After two days, the shock had ebbed. It left a strange, indifferent acceptance in its wake. There was nothing he could do. No Time-Turner could take away the irrevocable mark stamped on his forehead that he was spoiled.

He tried to think that other people must have experienced this feeling. Other people had lived through sex. How many had lived through sex with Severus Snape was another matter.

The more he thought back over the rain storm, the more ludicrous and distorted and grotesque his memories became. He tried to recall some of the tenderness and the adoration he had felt. Pain tainted his thoughts. He couldn't remember the gentleness of the hands. He could barely remember the actual act. What they'd done.

Looking back was like watching a grainy black-and-white film stuck on repeat. He couldn't see anything outside the look on Snape's face as he slammed Harry against the wall, bullied him never to tell.

Why it had happened that way, Harry didn't know. He doubted he would ever know. It was what hurt most.

The whole thing had made some kind of wonderful sense to him at the time. It was why he hadn't minded, why his anxiety had been so backseat. It felt safe, and secure, and  _okay_. Snape had been so appealing, and Harry had some dulled, buried memories that the act itself had been good. Yet it was like hearing that somebody else's first time had been good. The details were beyond him.

From being completely at ease in Snape's company, he became troubled even by sharing the same planet as him.

He recalled kneeling naked at the side of a bath, and laughing, and confessing admiration and respect. Being huddled in an alley, cradling Snape to keep him warm. Sharing fire-whiskey, playing cards.

Had it even happened? The change had been so dramatic as to suggest so. Above all, he had only confusion. When the confusion parted, when he thought past that, he regretted it instantly as shame bubbled up through the gaps in his awareness like black acid, like potions.

Harry had not seen Snape for four days.

He lived on the top floor of the house now. Snape stalked the cellars. Through dead compassion, Harry made food and brought it down, and left the plate on the stairs to the basement, and did not come back to collect the empty ones. They could pile up and rot for all he card. It was like hurling virgins down to the minotaur, however much the comparison made him go green.

It was eleven days since Voldemort had fallen. It was two until he could go home. Hermione's face swam uncertainly before him constantly, a faded promise of understanding.

Dawn came without incident.

Before the storm, he'd opened his eyes and felt some kind of joy for life, some comfort, even if it was just a longing to spend a few more minutes in the warm nest. For the past four days, he'd simply opened his eyes to the ceiling. Life trudged on.

Today was no different. He got out of bed and covered himself in clothes, trying not to touch his skin. It was too early to make food, not that he ever felt hungry.

To pass some time, he crawled onto the slippery ledge of the window at the top of the stairs. He brought his knees up to his chin. He'd been sitting this way a lot since the storm – it was the one way he could feel protected anymore. He gazed out at the drab landscape, misted with rain. There were grey winds blustering through Hogsmeade; he wished they'd blow through him, just to feel some sensation.

It was a scent that brought Harry from his stasis.

At first, he didn't notice it. He breathed in the smell of bacon without realising what it meant, eventually picking out the crackle of a frying pan, still oblivious. It was only when plates stirred and clacked together that Harry blinked into awareness. The implication made him go cold. All the same, he had to see.

He entered the kitchen to find Snape cooking.

He watched the man for a while as if this was a complete stranger, just making use of the kitchen. Snape seemed to be well on the way to a full physical recovery. He handled the frying pan with ease, as deft in his preparation of food as he had been in his preparation of Harry.

He didn't look at Harry, but didn't seem uncomfortable. He didn't even have the stiff-necked indifference that came when trying to ignore someone. True, he was cooking for one – but there was no hostility in it.

Snape had nothing to say to him, Harry realised. It hurt more than if Snape was yelling or cursing him.

He took a box of cereal, crisped rice, from the cupboard in the corner and retreated upstairs without a word. His alcove welcomed him back, the seat still warm. The packet rustled as he opened it and began to eat, feeding himself each grain individually, the box secure between his knees.

Halfway through, tears of exhaustion dampened his eyes. He didn't have the strength either to cry properly or get a grip on himself, so let the tears come. Eventually the cereal disinterested him. He pushed the box away and looked out of the window once more, trying to ignore the footsteps ascending the stairs.

"Potter."

He'd known it was coming, but it didn't make it any easier. He pressed his cheek to the window pane. "What?"

"This has gone on long enough. We've both had time to think and to realise what is for the best. Living like strangers is doing either of us a slight of good."

 _It seems to have done you plenty of good._ Harry remembered times when he'd have had the nerve to say it, and wondered distantly how sex could have changed him this drastically. His face tightened a little, but he said nothing.

"You know my reasons," Snape said quietly.

"I don't."

Snape was standing at the top of the stairs, not daring to come any closer. Harry didn't care to look at him. He could imagine Snape's face though, construct it through the deep discomfort in his voice.

"This conversation has no purpose. What's done is done. This business is in the past, and I would prefer it if you left it there."

Silence.

"It was... reckless of me, to engage you in such a way. If it makes you any more agreeable, I apologise. For my lack of control. I've brought - "

"Oh, fuck you..."

"Excuse me?"

"Fuck you, I said." Harry's head hurt with four days' worth of self-loathing. Enough was enough. "Fuck you, leave me alone. Stop acting like you did me a favour."

"I – what?"

"All this 'lack of control'? 'Engaging' me? Thanks. Thanks, professor, thanks for being such a great guy and only having sex with me  _once_. It's really noble of you. Thanks so much for all your control, and all your virtue, for not doing something totally stupid and awful and maybe  _holding me_  afterwards? Or say,  _talking_  to me. Or acknowledging that we'd done something  _important to me_. Thanks. Thanks, fuckhead, kind professor, wonderful professor. Do me another favour and leave me alone some more."

He didn't care for the stunned silence coming his way from the stairs. He closed his eyes, pressing his wet cheeks to the window.

"I hate you," he whispered. "I'll always hate you for what you've done to me."

There was more silence. Then, after a few moments, there came the chink of cutlery on ceramic and Snape's footsteps going away quietly down the stairs. Harry turned his head.

Bacon and eggs, for one, sat on the top step. He stared at it for a moment, registering how simplistic it all was, how picturesque.

Quietly he slid from the alcove. He picked up the plate.

"Severus?"

Snape was at the bottom of the stairs. As Harry spoke, he stopped. There was a moment of indecision, as if not sure whether he should respond to his first-name or wait for his second. In the end, he looked back up the stairs.

The heavy ceramic plate came from nowhere.

It hit him squarely in the jaw with the force of an Olympic discus. He reeled backwards. Red spattered the peeling paint as he hit the wall, slumped, then struggled upright, dripping blood.

"I've broken your jaw."

Harry stood at the top of the stairs like a ghost, eyes quiet.

"That's at worst. It'll heal. Madam Pomfrey could do it over night." He dropped the knives and forks gently down the stairs. "Chances are I've only bruised you or lost you a tooth. I haven't been eating. So you'll be fine."

He watched Snape wrack with pain, cradling his jaw, shuddering in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

"I can't believe you," Harry whispered. "Would it have killed you to tell me gently? I hadn't done it before. Ever. I know it was no good. But you could have told me. I wouldn't have pestered you to do it again. I'd have backed off. Now you'll heal, and I won't, and – and – "

From deathly calm, something awful and black and vile suddenly surged in his chest and he lost his dignity. He howled down the stairs.

" _I wish I'd left you dead!_ "

Then the thought came to him – the mad, sleep-deprived, hungry thought that he could change things back.

He didn't need a Time-Turner. Death was its own passage of time. Irrevocable change. Milestones on some empty road. In death there was the end of existence, of pain. He could turn things back.

He went for his wand. Snape saw him move and reached for his own, and dimly Harry wondered if the last thing he saw of Snape in this world would be the man bloody and broken and struggling to defend himself.

He looked into Snape's eyes. Four days ago they'd gazed down at him, proud, from under half-closed and lust-fogged lids.

" _Avada Kedavra -"_ he gasped.

* * *

The muggles called it Stockholm Syndrome.

Severus's half-blood childhood had given him a strange dual vision into both worlds, and how similar the two could be without either realising. Wizards called the condition Alcander's Syndrome, after the well-documented case of Zekia Alcander falling in love with the wizard who kept her captive for the better part of four years. It took nearly a decade for her to acknowledge that he'd beaten and raped her. She'd defended him vehemently.

Some didn't take as long to fall out of love as Zekia Alcander had. For some, it was months. Weeks. Days. Usually, the shorter the captivity, the less time it took to fall out of love. Some rare cases never got over their delusions. They loved the people they were unwillingly bound to, until they died.

Alcander's Syndrome was a survival method.

He'd read books on it out of curiosity, knowing that someday the time could come when he was held hostage and needed to know. Most of the books agreed that falling in love with a captor kept you alive. It kept you happy until you were freed. There was a strong sexual element to it. Human beings, by nature, feel fulfilled by having a steady sex life. Providing sex to a captor keeps them happy, keeps you alive.

He'd wondered from early on in the evening of the storm. Potter kept leaning close to him, touching his arm, drinking from the whiskey bottle without wiping the rim.

Had he become a captor in the boy's mind?

Severus Snape considered himself the holder of realistic perceptions. Certain things, he excelled in. Certain things, he did not. As an intellectual mind, he was unchallenged in any field he dedicated himself to. As a spy, he was indispensable. As a master of the psychic arts, he had lied to the world's most accomplished legilimens and lived.

As a partner, he was a poor choice.

Youth, beauty, an easy-going nature and sensitivity, they said, were the qualities for a partner. He was old and unlovely; he was concerned with his own matters. He didn't know how to be affectionate, nor would he ever learn. As a bed partner, he relied upon instinct rather than experience. He liked his own company. People grated on him.

Potter had Alcander's Syndrome – it was an inescapable conclusion.

He scrutinised himself, looking for anything that could have genuinely attracted the boy. Nothing arose. The solution was hard to swallow, but he swallowed, embracing reality if nothing else. Potter hadn't seen another soul in seven days – no wonder he would bond himself to Snape. He'd become the sole population of Potter's world.

It had been unthinkable, engaging the boy in sex. He'd known it would be.

During, he hadn't thought of it. All he'd known was the flush in the boy's cheeks, the gentle undulations of his hips, the innocent enthusiasm with which he went about licking Severus's erection. He'd thought about how right the kisses felt. The boy's neck was almost creamy in its softness under his lips.

He'd near enough raped the boy.

In a few weeks, Potter would realise. He'd open his eyes one morning and realise he'd been coerced, violated, and at least now, he'd thank Snape for it being only that one time. He could have indulged the boy. It would have been all too easy, but he hadn't. However petulant the boy was being now, he would understand in time.

* * *

There was a flash of insipid green light.

Pain to match the jaw burst in Snape's nose – sharp, demanding like the bite of a rodent. Yet more blood spattered his hands. He flicked his head, angrily, trying to blink down the pain from the crack in his jaw and the wrench in his nose.

Potter had tried to kill him – though not really. He hadn't wanted Snape to die, or he'd have delivered much worse than a nosebleed, even if the nosebleed was damn inconvenient. He wiped a great gush of blood from his face and looked up the stairs, panting, covered in his own blood.

Wide green eyes looked back at him, the wand tip still aimed in his direction, shaking.

Then he saw Harry's knees gave way.

The boy fainted – mercifully sideways, slumping at the top of the stairs rather than descending them. Snape spat out a mouthful of blood and reached for his wand.

* * *

Harry came round with his cheek against Snape's chest. The quiet drum of the older man's heart was the first thing he knew.

For a long time there was nothing else, just that steady rhythm, his own heart beating in response. It was a strange kind of communication, a much more intimate one than screaming and duelling and even making love. As he relaxed into it, listened to what he was being told, he became aware of a faint white glow just beyond his eyelids. He opened his eyes.

Snape wasn't aware of his consciousness. He sat facing away, the tip of his wand pressed to his own jaw, pearlescent light streaming beneath the skin. He was murmuring in Latin.

Quiet guilt troubled Harry as he watched. He really had hit Snape hard. Flinging a plate like a betrayed housewife, then giving him the nosebleed to end all nosebleeds.

It could have been so much worse.

But it was done now. He'd said what he had to. They were close again, and here was Snape's heart, beating in his ear. That could only be progress, even if it had hurt to get here. He turned his face gently against the older man's chest. Snape stiffened. There was a distinct fracture in the line of his Latin, though he kept going and Harry kept listening until the river of words dried up.

Then they sat in silence. Snape put his wand down. Harry came to realise that they were at the top of the stairs where he'd fallen. The ground was strewn with bacon. One of the flung eggs had hit the wall nearby and slid down, now huddled in a wrinkled little pile of white. It was rather sad.

"You..."

Snape spoke very seriously, softly, as if a thousand people were clustered round them and listening.

"You have something called Alcander's Syndrome. Are you familiar with the muggle condition known as Stockholm Syndrome?"

Harry nodded, though wasn't entirely sure what Snape was trying to say. He wasn't being held captive, not to his knowledge.

"The two are more or less the same," Snape was saying. "Your... affections towards me are motivated by fear. I need you to know that. Now you do, perhaps the connection you feel to me will fade – as it should."

Harry wondered.

A tiny frown touched his brow – he didn't have Stockholm Syndrome. Nothing like that. He wasn't kept here against his will, least of all by Snape. Snape wasn't threatening to shoot him if an authority didn't bow to his wishes. It was ludicrous.

Snape had noticed his frown. He lifted a hand to Harry's forehead, and began to soothe his thumb over the tiny creases.

"Uncomfortable as it is to admit, Alcander's Syndrome is not an opportunity for others to take advantage of." He paused. "Which I did. I exploited you. I... want you to know that I'm deeply sorry for it."

Harry spent a minute or two picking through the dormant minefield of his brain, connecting thoughts to thoughts and checking them for sparks. A question remained; he sought out his answer.

"Did you... exploit me because you liked me? Or was it just a case of wanting sex and being offered it?"

Snape stopped stroking his forehead. He seemed more awkward than Harry had ever seen him.

"My motivation does not matter. You are not attracted to me."

"Sure?"

"Be serious. Even if you were, I can assure you that you would feel  _very_  differently in a situation elsewhere." The older wizard resumed his stroking – it felt as if it were meant to calm Snape, more than meant to calm Harry. "I exploited you. I bitterly regret even the once. It will not be happening again, regardless of how I do or do not feel towards you."

There was a pause. Snape continued, voice hollow.

"You're deluded. It was wrong of me. My only hope of redemption comes from halting these interactions now, before I damage you anymore."

Harry sat up. He moved carefully, feeling his head throb, but there were more important things in this moment. He put his hands on Snape's chest and looked into his eyes.

They regarded each other.

"Why is it so impossible that I could genuinely find you spine-tinglingly gorgeous?" Harry said, at last.

"Harry." Snape's throat sounded distinctly dry. "You aren't in a steady state of mind. I won't have you fool yourself."

"The only thing I could be fooling myself over is whether you like me or not. And I think you do." Snape's pupils were wide amidst the defensive black iris, Harry noted. He slid his hands up onto the man's shoulders. "I like you. A lot."

"You're not – "

" – thinking right? I am. I don't even have to  _think_  I am, because I know."

He drew away.

"You're scared," he said, and caught Snape's involuntary twitch. "You don't think anyone could like you because you don't like yourself."

"Nonsense. I – I am realistic, Potter, in my – "

"So you've convinced yourself I'm going mad. I'm not really attracted to you. And you're so wrong. All this crap about exploiting me... you're terrified. You think that if we get close, you'll get too deep and then if I leave, you'll be heartbroken." He paused, realising. "Just like when she left. You won't put yourself through it again."

"Stop. Stop it  _now_."

"No." Harry's eyes shimmered. "Listen. I'm attracted to you. I.. I liked what we did. I've not got Alcander's Syndrome."

"Potter, you don't  _understand_  – "

"I do. And much better than you, I think. Let me prove I'm right."

He captured Snape's wrists.

"Come somewhere else with me... it's eleven days now. I'll be in Hogwarts on my own. Nobody would know." He swallowed. "Please. Anywhere. I just... just don't want you to think – "

"This is madness."

Harry shook his head. "Madness is going back in time to save my greasy ex-Potions Master then living with him in a shack for a fortnight. This is perfectly sane."

"Sane as a box of frogs," Snape muttered, and Harry reached out, cupping his jaw fiercely.

"Come with me," he said. Snape had fallen silent, staring at him with a mixture of defiance and alarm. "That, or we say goodbye here and now. Then in a year you'll get a letter from me saying I still think you're incredible, and you'll have missed out on a year."

He waited, trying not to breathe too much, begging the black eyes to yield.

"Where?" Snape said, so quietly it might not have been spoken at all.

"Anywhere. Abroad so we won't be recognised. I've... I've never been, not properly. Somewhere hot and gorgeous."

Snape, although tense, seemed to be thinking. "I have an old friend, conducting field work near the Dead Sea. I gather the climate there is pleasant. She... often mentioned in her letters that I should visit."

 _The Dead Sea_. Harry knew hardly anything about the Dead Sea, or where it was, or what it was like, but he wanted it. Powerfully. It seemed to show on his face and Snape drew back, as if fearful of his enthusiasm.

"Please," Harry said. "Just a week. Seven days."

"It – " Snape flushed angrily. "This is lunacy. Absolute lunacy. We have no method of transport, no accommodation, no luggage – "

"Is there a wizarding population near there?"

"Well, yes. A great deal of research into the properties of the water goes on. There is a village mainly wizarding, a hotel on the shoreline, I believe. But – "

"Then we'll go there. I can get your clothes from Hogwarts. We'll go by broom."

Snape looked as if he was going to regret this. Harry buried his fingers in the front of his robes.

"Please."

"You can't go into Hogwarts. You will see yourself."

"I'll go while I'm down in the dungeons brewing – " Suddenly, the pieces slotted into place. "Ohhh, right."

"What? What now?"

"I've already been. When I was in Hogwarts, I heard a big crash and thought it was Peeves. Oh!" He almost laughed. "Your gargoyle... I'm so stupid. I asked if he'd seen anybody and he said only me. And of course it would only be me, it  _was_  me, just a bit later."

He smiled at Snape, who was not following.

"Look, it... it doesn't matter. It just means it's okay. We can go."

Snape said nothing. His shoulders were hunched, reluctance etched in his face – but beyond the frown lines, Harry could see a spark of hope in the man's black eyes. Snape wanted this. He just wouldn't let himself want it.

"I'm going to the post office tonight," Harry said. "Give me the name of that hotel and I'll send an owl to see if there are rooms. And even if there aren't, we'll stay with your friend. We're going. Because I like you, a lot."

"I... I apparently have no choice in this matter, Potter."

"No, you don't. And my name's Harry."


	11. Over and Over

It was the fifteenth morning. A dawn breeze skittered along the shore of the Dead Sea, coaxing breaths of sand across the hotel fronts. Over night, a cool had come in from the sea. It calmed the air, softening the encroach of dawn. On the bedside table, an anxious letter from Ron and Hermione sat forgotten.

Harry woke nearly naked beneath crumpled white cotton. For some time he laid at utter peace in this realm of quiet into which they'd fallen, let it hold him, rock him, listening to the ebb and release of the sea. He opened his eyes to the half-dark. The sun was rising in ribbons of liquid gold and coral. Light was spilling back into the sky.

In the wicker chair beside the glass doors, Severus was applying ointment to the fresh scars on his neck. His eyes were closed. He was draped only in his dressing robe. Harry watched him, marvelling, falling.

Severus knew he was awake. His eyes opened briefly to pour out more ointment and they met each other's gaze across the room, held it for a moment, but did not speak. Harry stirred beneath the sheets. Severus went on with his scars. In the end, Harry eased out of bed and slid one of the thin robes around his shoulders, aware of Severus watching, the sun's ribbons patterning over his skin bare but for shorts.

As he approached, Severus said quietly: "Good morning."

Harry took the bottle from him, oiled his fingers, and Severus tilted his head back. The scars were fading more and more with each passing day. They would never truly go. Always Severus would have silvery white knots and stars at his throat - they were constellations, Harry thought, mapping the night. People revered the lightning bolt on his forehead, and the past two weeks had taught him something. His scar was not a souvenir from Voldemort, as people so often said - as he himself had always thought of it. It wasn't a mark, a threat.

It was a gift from his mother; the gift of a second chance.

He would always love the stars on Severus's throat.

He worked the ointment gently into the skin, leaning close. He caught the scent of sleep and sex on the older man's skin. Fingertips splayed on Harry's lower back. He obeyed their gentle wish, easing into the chair, onto Severus's lap. The older wizard's lips lifted to his throat. His eyes drifted out of focus as they kissed, brushing, feathering, and the fingertips came to his leg. He swallowed. Shivers traversed his body.

Severus's mouth sought upwards towards his ear, warm breath tickling and gentle, the Roman nose nuzzling into his hair. He felt the broad chest under his fingers expand in a silent sigh.

"Harry."

It was a question. His answer was yes. He hummed it, as lean fingers grazed over his thigh and all too fleetingly over his belly. He quivered. There was a pause; they shared breath, waiting, knowing. Then Severus reached down.

The hand slowly cupped his erection. Harry shuddered and bit down on his moan, catching the intake of breath from Severus. The older wizard was watching him, chin raised, beginning to fondle and rub him in demand of a reaction. The steady squeezes shook Harry to the core. Blood began to pool between his legs, stiffening, helpless to the fingers that gripped far more than his cock.

"Kiss me," came the breath against his mouth.

He did. Out of every touch, this would always be his favourite. The play of lips across his own was unlike any other touch, though he adored those as well. There was something about the gentle prods of Severus's tongue, convincing him to open a little. He felt the fingers seek up a little and snare in the waist of his shorts, creep beneath. He tremored. Their lips broke.

"N-no... you're weak, you... we already, last night - ... I..."

Severus was slipping his shorts down, easing them over the curve of his arse. Anxiety and desperate triumph pounded through his blood. Severus returned to his swollen cock, fingers coiling about him, and lazily began to fist.

He was watching Harry with half-lidded eyes. Not a muscle in the body beneath Harry's hands was tense. Control, satin in its luxuriance, radiated from the older man as he observed, drank it all in, and Harry was little more than goo. Severus's fingers were creeping down, brushing his balls lightly, taking them into his palm. He tumbled them gently.

Harry stifled a moan into his shoulder, clamping down on the shudder.

"No, no..." Severus's lips tilted to his ear, voice rumbling straight to Harry's soul. "Let me hear, Harry. Share it with me."

The fist tightened around his cock. He shuddered and pushed into it, eased into it, burying his face in Severus's neck.

"Yes... tighter, mm?"

"Yes – " Harry reached down and held Severus's hand in both of his own, just to feel the slide of fingers and hot skin. "F-fuck..."

Amusement rumbled softly in his ear. Severus was stroking down his back, inch-by-inch, drawing him closer. The hardness of the other wizard's erection brushed his thigh and he reached for it, but had his hand swatted aside.

"I haven't finished," came the reprimand - infinitely soft. Crossed fingers sought their way down his cleft. His cheeks blazed. He shifted, spreading his legs.

Nothing happened. He lifted his head, looking to the side in confusion. Severus was unscrewing the ointment one-handed.

"Is that safe?" he managed. Severus's lips curled against his temple.

"What do you care for 'safe'?"

It was surely illegal to sound quite so enticing, Harry decided. He then decided he didn't care. Oil dripped on the base of his spine, pooling, trickling down, fingers following in its wake and he forgot himself entirely. For a long time he was nothing but that sensation of easing and persuasion, and the salt of Severus's skin when it hurt and he bit down on his shoulder. He became aware of a rise and fall, an ebbing. It was in the rhythm of Severus's chest as he breathed. It was in the breeze and the tide beyond the thin curtains. It was in himself, waxing and waning, fingers seeking and stretching until he was being coaxed up for a kiss. He moaned, restless. Severus shivered and bit at his lower lip, pushing into it, touch shaking for the first time.

It was an ungainly stagger to the bed. Harry wasn't willing to wait for Severus to get comfortable. He caught the older wizard's wrists the second he was down, pinning them to the sheets, stretching him out and climbing over him. He wouldn't ever remember how they came to be holding hands. They gripped each other, half-fierce, half-afraid, and Harry shifted into place.

His eyes scrunched shut as he pushed down, taking it, fighting the initial discomfort. Severus knotted their fingers tighter. It seemed endless. Through the ache Harry squeezed the other wizard's hands, huffed, fighting to relax. One hand let go of his own. It reappeared on his cock, curving, stroking, easing him back to pleasure. Harry's throat worked as he swallowed. At last, the pain was calming. He stirred, mumbling, head rolling back. Severus began to move in him.

"Oh god," Harry whispered, voice thick.

Severus, wordless, moaned his agreement. The older wizard shifted and triangled his feet, raising his knees for Harry to lean back against them. The shift in angle was enough to rob him of all thought. He stopped fighting. He bucked slowly, rocking into each stroke, working, easing, responding to the familiar rise and fall of pleasure and Severus's mercy.

He would never tire of this. This would never lose its wonders. He thought of the terrible first time, and all the wounds that had healed in the rush of the second time, Severus's fingers seeking under his clothes and the mouth at his ear whispering, promising, I'm sorry. He thought of the third time, the fourth. This was the seventh time. He would count them. He didn't want to lose a single one. He didn't want to lose another minute. Their pace was picking up and there was sweat on his lower back, his cock so hard it hurt. Severus was wearing an expression as if in pain. Not long now. It was too good. A strange, urgent need rose up in Harry like a bubble and he gasped it, begging Severus to look at him.

The black eyes opened; life shone from within, liquid life, and Harry shattered. He came, crying out, washed away.

In the heart of his shudders he saw only the coal-black eyes, gazing at him, adoring him, fading and their focus melting as they closed over, lost in the very littlest of deaths.

* * *

"You must reply to that letter today. Your fan-club will think you have been devoured by the space-time continuum."

"Ron will probably wish I had, when he finds out."

"Ronald Weasley never has, nor never will, have any place in my sex life. When I desire his opinion I shall ask for it."

They were in bed. They had been so for the past few days, never leaving except to shower and quickly return. An evening walk along the shore had been the extent of their exploration.

Harry was beginning to see the massive benefits to laying low here for a while. After all, the world had no use for him anymore. Nobody cared who he was and what he'd done. It was the best possible start to a new life that he ever could have asked for. He didn't know how he'd adapt to a life with no overriding, terrible purpose looming and waiting for him on the horizon. Then again, he supposed he had plenty of time to choose.

Lifting his head from Severus's chest, he peered into the other's eyes. They regarded each other closely.

"What?" Severus said, at last.

"Just thinking."

"Please desist. It makes me uncommonly nervous."

Harry's lips curved. "Thinking  _good_  things. About you."

"Yes, hence my nervousness." All the same, he began to stroke the back of Harry's neck, deft fingers curling in the soft black hair. "I need you to know something. To bear it in mind."

"You're not... straight or something, are you?"

Severus snorted. "Even if I was, I'm certainly not anymore. It's worse."

"Are you part vampire? Because I could have guessed. There were a lot of rumours."

" _No_ , I – stop trying to guess. I'm not trying to instigate one of your blasted games. I'm trying to be serious." Severus shifted. "Be quiet and listen."

Harry said nothing by way of agreement, laying his head back down. Severus went on.

"I'm... not clear on your intentions towards me. What you want from me. Part of me doesn't want to know and as far as I'm concerned, things should develop along their own course. Anything we  _do_... eh, pursue, will be extremely difficult. I will never be welcome again in wizarding society. You will forever be their hero, and the consequences will all come to light in their own time. Until then, this... this arrangement we have. It suits me. Very much."

Harry grinned into his lover's chest, but still said nothing.

"Though I need you to know. Every hour of every day, I will be waiting for you to come to your senses and run screaming. You will never convince me otherwise. Never."

There was quiet for a while. Harry tilted his head.

"Is that it?" he said, lightly, and Severus frowned.

"It's a significant issue."

Harry hummed. "If you say so." He pushed himself up a little, ignoring the protests of his lower back, his exhausted muscles, and twisted in order to look down into Severus's eyes. He pressed their foreheads together. "I guess I'll just have to stay, then. Every hour and every day."

Severus shook his head, as if dumbfounded. He said nothing for a moment, then: "You absolutely mystify me."

"Why?"

"Of all the people you could choose to share a bed with."

"You think I chose you?" Harry said, and he found himself grinning, teasing. "I didn't choose you. The  _universe_  chose you for me. Tell the universe it mystifies you.  _I_ make total sense."

There was silence. Severus reached up, petting his cheek, and Harry felt as if he could purr.

"Why in heaven's name did you come back for me?" Severus whispered against his lips.

Harry said the only thing he knew to be true. He wouldn't insult Severus with anything else; he wouldn't belittle what they had with things they didn't have yet. He said it with as much care and regard as if it were three other words, and he knew the answer would never change.

"I don't know," he whispered.

Severus took this in. He stroked Harry's cheekbone with a thumb, eyes quiet.

"Stay," he said. He didn't make sound. He shaped it with his lips, pleaded it, as if he couldn't bear to voice such a thing and have it declined.

Harry closed his eyes. "I will," he said. He brushed their cheeks; he let the arms wrap him up, wrap right around him, feeling his soul expand into the hug. It would be difficult. He knew it would. Even now he was making plans to write to the Ministry, to start clearing Severus's name, but even if it never cleared he didn't care. They could stay right here. They would disappear from the world and in ten years, people would be writing articles asking whatever happened to Harry Potter.

Harry Potter would be here; just here, just as he was, kissing the stars on his lover's throat and wanting nothing more.

Severus stirred beneath him, with a noise of protest.

"Insatiable beast," came the murmur. Harry was unrelenting. He raised his head and spoke against Severus's jaw, as his hands wandered over the flat belly.

"You know you said you'll never believe me."

"Mm."

"How many times do I need to have sex with you before I change your mind?"

Severus considered.

"Once more," he decided, and leant for Harry's lips. "Always once more."

* * *

A few days later, Ron was sitting in the front yard of the Burrow. He sat cross-legged in the dust by the front step, polishing his Cleansweep and ignoring the chickens as they darted about him. Ever since Harry's disappearance, Ron had kept to himself. He occupied himself with things – chess, washing up, helping his father repaint the shed. His mother was concerned. He hadn't done this much activity in years, she said, and asked Hermione if she thought he was looking pale. Ron scowled and left the pair of them to it.

He still didn't understand why Harry had gone alone. He didn't understand why Harry had gone at all, come to that. The last encounter they'd had with a Time Turner hadn't exactly been smooth. He worked his cloth into the corners of the tin, fighting for the last streaks of polish. Surely Harry should have been back moments after leaving, and it was nearly a week now. Ron didn't want to think about it.

Losing his best friend to Voldemort would have been unbearable. Losing him to  _time_ , to just nothing, having him accidentally erase himself out of history, would be even worse. And what would they tell people? What if a month went by, a year? What if people started asking questions?

Frowning, shoving the thoughts away, Ron turned his broom over and began to polish the underside. An owl flapped its way overhead and down the chimney without him noticing.

The door opened a minute or two later.

"I'll come do it," he said, vaguely. "Just let me finish this."

"Kind of you," said Hermione, as she sat beside him on the step, brushing her skirt neatly into place. "But if you don't mind, we'll stop the confusing me for your mother right now. There's a letter."

He looked up. "Who from? From Harry?"

She held it up. He snatched it off her and ripped it open.

" _Dear Ron and Hermione_ ," he read aloud. Relief flooded him. "It's him, it's really Harry! I recognise his hand-writing!  _Dear Ron and Hermione. Hope you're both okay and not missing me. I guess from this you know I'm fine! Everything went great. We've not been seen - I promise, Hermione! There's been some problems with fainting and stuff but all the venom is gone now. He's good as new. Maybe he's even a bit better than he was."_

Ron frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he said, and continued. " _Anyway, keep writing and I'll write back sooner next time, I promise. Severus and I are lying low here for a while. We'll be back in a few weeks or maybe not – you might have to come and visit. I miss you both. Love_ ,  _Harry."_

Something was wrong about that last part. He re-read it. He then realised.

"Whoa, excuse me. 'Severus'? Since when do we know a 'Severus'?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. " _Snape_ , Ron. His name was – "

"I know what his name was! And so far as I knew, his name was Snape. What's this 'Severus' stuff about? All this... 'we'." He studied the envelope. "Where's that stamp from? That's not English. And – "

As he turned it over, a handful of dust hissed out into his lap. It blew away across the yard.

"Was that sand?" he said, dumbfounded.

He looked up at Hermione. She had a very far-away look in her eye, and a soft little smile on her lips. She knew something he didn't. His brow furrowed.

"What's up with you?" he said.

Her eyes sparkled. "Do you remember David and Aulius, Ron?"

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your comments and kindness... it scares me slightly that I wrote this almost a decade ago. I can't tell you how much it means to me that people are still enjoying it. Your messages light up my world. So thanks for reading all this way - and thank you so much for your appreciation.
> 
> With much love, Moth. x


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